Great Americans of History 



JOHN RANDOLPH 



A CHARACTER SKETCH 



RICHARD HEATH DABNEY, M. A., Ph. D. 

Professor of Historical and Economic Science in the University of Virginia ; author ot 
" The Causes of the French Revolution," etc. 



TOGETHER WITH 

ANECDOTES, CHARACTERISTICS, AND CHRONOLOGY 

BY 

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GREAT AMERICANS OF HISTORY SERIES. 



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rrm ^ ;~>^richard heath dabne 




RICHARD HEATH DABNEY 

M.A.. PM.D 




AMONG American families few have been more emi- 
nent, either in colonial days or since, than the Ran- 
dolphs of Virginia. The name had, indeed, been a dis- 
tinguished one in England for centuries before William 
Randolph, Gentleman, of Warwickshire (Shakespeare's 
County), came to Virginia in 1674 and settled at Turkey 
Island, James River. 

The spot is historic. For close by was the estate of 
Nathaniel Bacon, who two years later led the rebellion 
against Sir Williau Berkeley, the royal Governor. In 
close proximity, too, is Malvern Hill, where nearly two 
centuries later the shattered army of McClellan found 
shelter from the sledge-hammer blows of Robert E. Lee. 

The young Englishman was not long alone at Turkey 
Island, but soon married a young woman of the colony. 
The billing and cooing of most loving couples is of small 
consequence to the world at large. But not so in this 
case. Gibbon truly says that, when the enemies of Mo- 
hammed caught up with him on his flight from Mecca 
to Medina, "in this eventful moment the lance of an Arab 



6 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

might have changed the history of the world." And it 
may be said with equal truth that the glance of Mary 
Isham's eye did actually change the course of history. 
Had she failed to look tenderly upon William Randolph, 
not a few of the greatest Americans had never been born. 
Pot not onlv were this pair the progenitors of such men 

as Peyton Randolph, the 
first President of the first 
Continental Congress, Ed- 
mund Randolph, the first 
Attorney-General and sec- 
ond Secretary of State of 
the United States, William 
vStith, the historian of Vir- 
ginia, BishopWilliam Meade, 
the historian as well as "Re- 
storer' ' of the Episcopal 
Church of Virginia, and 
Bishop Alfred M. Randolph, 
but also of Thomas Jefferson, Chief Justice Marshall, 
and last, but not least one, grandest and noblest of all — 
Robert Edward Lee. Such being the descendants of 
this couple, the fair reader will doubtless shudder at what 
might have been — or might not have been — had Mary 
[sham been obdurate, and died an old maid. 

Fortunately, however, she hardened not her heart, but 
wedded, and in due time presented her husband with sev- 
en sons and two daughters. 

( me of these sons, Richard by name, became the own- 
er of Curies, the confiscated estate of Nathaniel Bacon, and 




Robert E. Lee. 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 7 

married Jane Boiling, a great-great-granddaughter of Po- 
cahontas. Richard Randolph's fourth son, John, married 
Frances Bland, daughter of Col. Theodorick Bland of 
Cawsons, Prince George Co., situated on the high bank of 
the Appomattox, near its junction with the James. Here, 
on June 2, 1773, the third son of John and Frances Ran- 
dolph, the subject of this sketch, first saw the light. 

Though born at the house of his maternal grandfather, 
his early childhood was chiefly spent at his father's place, 
Matoax, on the Appomattox, two miles above Petersburg. 
His father died in 1775, and his mother, a woman of great 
beauty and high mental qualities, continued to reside at 
Matoax both before and after her marriage to St. George 
Tucker of Bermuda in 1778. Sincerely pious herself, 
she took great pains with the religious training of the 
dark-eyed boy; and although John Randolph, after his 
mother's death, eagerly imbibed the deistical philosophy 
of the day and was a scoffer at Christianity during his 
early manhood, yet when troubles of many kinds had 
saddened his heart, the memory of his mother's teachings 
came vividly back to his mind. 

"When I could first remember," says he, "I slept in 
the same bed with my widowed mother — each night, be- 
fore putting me to bed, I repeated on my knees before 
her the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed — each 
morning kneeling in the bed I put up my little hands in 
prayer in the same form. Years have since passed away; 
I have been a skeptic, a professed scoffer, glorying in my 
infidelity, and vain of the ingenuity with which I could 
defend it. Prayer never crossed my mind, but in scorn. 



8 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

I am now conscious that the lessons above mentioned, 
taught me by my dear and revered mother, are of more 
value to me than all that I have learned from my pre- 
ceptors and compeers." 

Shielding him from contact with vulgarity and mean- 
ness in every form, she taught him to read so early that 
by the time he was eleven years old he is said to have 
read "Robinson Crusoe," "Gulliver's Travels," Plu- 
tarch's "Lives," "Don Quixote," "Gil Bias," "Quintus 
Curtins," "Pope's Homer," "Orlando Furioso," "Tom 
Jones," Voltaire's "Charles XII," Thomson's "Seasons," 
the "Spectator," "Humphrey Clinker," Goldsmith's 
"Roman History," "Shakespeare," "The Arabian 
Nights," etc; the last two, in particular, being his de- 
light, as giving free scope to his own active and poetic 
imagination. 

The boy was born in stirring times; and before he was 
eight years old, they became more stirring still. For in 
the early days of January, 1781, his mother and step-fath- 
er, hearing of the approach of Benedict Arnold and his 
marauding band, hastily collected some of their movable 
goods, and with their children (one of them a new-born 
infant, who afterwards became the eminent jurist, Judge 
Henry St. George Tucker, Professor of Law at the Uni- 
versity of Virginia), fled to Bizarre, another of their es- 
tates, ninety miles further up the Appomattox. 

Before he was nine years old, John was sent with his 
two brothers to Walker Maury's school in Orange Co., 
and afterwards to Williamsburg, when Maun- had moved 
there to take charge of a grammar school connected with 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 9 

William and Mary College. Here he remained for about 
a year, reading Sallust and Vergil, learning theWestmin- 
ster Greek Grammar by heart, and studying French and 




William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Va. 
Jefferson and many other noted Virginians attended this College. 

the elements of Geometry. Being proud and reserved, 
he mingled little with the general crowd of boys, but laid 
the foundation of a life-long friendship with the brilliant 
Littleton Waller Tazewell, afterwards Governor of Vir- 
ginia and United States Senator. 

John was a very beautiful boy, but of such delicate 
constitution that he was taken from school in the spring 



io JOHN RANDOLPH. 

of 1784, and spent the next eighteen months in the island 
of Bermuda. We next hear of him at Princeton in 1787, 
where he was "forced to be idle, being put into a noisy 
wretched grammar school for Dr. Witherspoon's emolu- 
ment," though "ten times a better scholar than the mas- 
ter of it." He mentions that the prize of elocution there 
"was borne away by mouthers and ranters, " and evident- 
ly derived but little profit from his connection with 
Princeton, from which place he was called away in Jan- 
uary, 1788, by the death of his beloved mother — an event 
which he ever after regarded as the greatest misfortune 
of his life. 

In June of the same year he went to Columbia College, 
N. Y., and was delighted with the instruction of Professor 
Cochran, a scholarly Irishman, whom he paid with his 
own pocket-money to give him private lessons. They 
read Demosthenes together, and it is characteristic of the 
future champion of State Rights that he wept with in- 
dignation at the success of Philip's schemes for crush- 
ing the Greek States beneath centralized Macedonian 
despotism. 

To his deej) distress, however, Cochran removed to No- 
va Seotia after three months, and the boy now began to 
neglect his studies. That this was a calamity he always 
believed, and with reason; for, while it is true that a race- 
horse ought not to be put to the plough, or a genius with 
delicate physique and electrical nerves forced through 
the mechanical mill of stupid pedagogical routine, it is 
equally certain that a few years more of systematic 
guidance by able teachers would have given John Ran- 



JOHN RANDOLPH. n 

dolph's intellect a balance and a steadiness that would 
have made him a far more efficient man than he actually 
became. For such guidance would not only have trained 
his mind, but would have curbed his will and his tem- 
per as well. 

After Cochran left Columbia, the fifteen- year-old boy 
read "only the trash of the circulating library" and nev- 
er read afterwards, he tells us, "except for amusement, 
unless for a few weeks at Williamsburg at the close of 
1793." Surely it was a calamity that a man so brilliant 
should have had such a desultory schooling and should 
never have acquired those disciplined habits of self-con- 
trol that might have enabled him to master a temper so 
violent that at four years of age he actually swooned in 
a fit of passion. 

"I have been all my life," he long afterwards said, 
"the creature of impulse, the sport of chance, the victim 
of my own uncontrolled and uncontrollable sensations." 

His nerves were so sensitive that he said he felt like a 
man with no skin; and much of his erratic and eccentric 
conduct was due to the fact that trifles which would have 
failed to penetrate even the moral epidermis of thicker- 
skinned men were poisoned dagger-thrusts to him. 

The boy was still in New York when Washington was 
inaugurated, and was a witness of the ceremony. His 
mind was already intensely active on political questions; 
and, as his uncle, Theodorick Bland, had been a member 
of the Virginia Convention that ratified the Constitution, 
and was a member of the first United States Congress, 
as was also John's step-uncle, Thomas Tudor Tucker, his 



12 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

opportunities for becoming acquainted with political prin- 
ciples were ample. Theodorick Bland was a disciple of 
Patrick Henry and George Mason, and had voted with 
those far-seeing statesmen against the adoption of the 
Constitution. John Randolph grew up to manhood, 
therefore, in a political atmosphere saturated with love 
of local liberty and jealousy of centralized power, and 
his mind retained this bent to the end. 

In December, 1790, the seat of government was moved 
to Philadelphia, and we find our embryo statesman there 
also at the house of his cousin, the Attorney-General. It 
is needless to say that he also came into contact with his 
still greater kinsman, the Secretary of State. With what 
keen interest he drank in the political lessons to be de- 
rived from intercourse with so many eminent men at the 
very centre of affairs may well be imagined. 

But, while he was a disciple of Jefferson in his strict 
construction of the Constitution, he could not wholly fol- 
low him and Thomas Paine in their views of the French 
Revolution, which was now the theme of world-wide at- 
tention. Rather was he a pupil of the profounder Burke, 
whose prophecies of anarchy, followed by despotism, in 
France were so soon to be verified. 

Among Randolph's companions in Philadelphia were 
John W. Eppes, the only man who ever succeeded — and 
he but once — in defeating him for Congress; Thomas Mar- 
shall, brother of the great John Marshall; Robert Rose, 
who married thesister of James Madison; and Joseph Bry- 
an of Georgia (afterwards a member of Congress). 

Some of John Randolph's friends in Philadelphia were 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 13 

students of medicine, and he himself attended some lect- 
ures on anatomy and physiology. If he studied law in 
the office of Edmund Randolph, it was to a very limited 
extent. He did pick up some knowledge of law from 
his general reading, but there is no proof of his having 
systematically studied it. 

Reaching his majority in June, 1794, he took npon him- 
self the management of his estate Roanoke in Charlotte 
Co. on the Staunton River, but resided for some years at 
Bizarre, in Cumberland, with his eldest brother Richard, 
whom he devotedly loved and admired. But, while Bi- 
zarre was his headquarters, it is not to be supposed that 
this brilliant young fellow, living in hospitable Virginia, 
settled quietly down to a humdrum existence. He rode 
over to Roanoke often enough to look after his estate, 
but spent much of his time in hunting, riding, visiting 
his friends, and writing to those at a distance. Few men, 
indeed, have ever carried on so voluminous a friendly 
correspondence throughout life as John Randolph. Great 
numbers of his letters are still extant, and throw much 
light upon his character and that of his time. 

Two of his friends, Rutledge of South Carolina, and 
Bryan of Georgia, induced him to visit them early in 
1796 — Bryan promising him the "best Spanish segars 
and the best of liquors — good horses, deer hunting in 
perfection— good companions, that is to say, not merely 
bottle crackers, Jack, but good, sound, well-informed 
Democrats." That nevertheless a few bottles, as well as 
political nuts, were cracked by the jovial young blades, 
we gather from a subsequent letter from Joe Bryan, in 



14 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

which he reminds his friend Jack that his eldest brother 
still remembered the rum ducking he had given him. 

Returning to Bizarre in July, John Randolph was ter- 
ribly shocked to find that his brother Richard, said to 
have been the most promising young man in Virginia, 
had died on the 14th of June, leaving a widow and two 
children. And not only was he called upon to bear the 
weight of this great sorrow, but also the responsibility of 
managing his brother's estate as well as his own. 

The death of his brother affected John Randolph pro- 
foundly, and his sensitive and highly wrought nervous 
system was thrown into such disorder that his cousin, 
Mrs. Dudley, testified after his death that she regarded 
him at this time as always eccentric and sometimes in- 
sane. Her room was just over his, and she said he was 
the most sleepless man she ever knew — frequently throw- 
ing things about his room, exclaiming "Macbeth hath 
murdered sleep," or mounting his horse and riding, sword 
in hand, over the plantation at dead of night. But the 
poignancy of his grief was at length allayed, and we will 
pass on to the year 1799, when his active political career 
began. 

The Constitution of the United States declares explic- 
itly that Congress shall pass no law abridging the free- 
dom of speech or of the press; the States, which made the 
Constitution, reserving the right to deal with such ques- 
tions themselves. Yet the Federalist party, carried away 
by partisan rage at the violent attacks made upon its pol- 
icy by the Republican press, deliberately trampled the 
Constitution under foot, and passed not only the Alien 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 15 

Act, which gave the President the usurped power to ban- 
ish foreigners obnoxious in his eyes, but also the Sedition 
Act, which punished with fine and imprisonment any 
one who should write, print, utter or publish anything 
in criticism of Congress or the President which partisan 
judges might choose to consider false, scandalous or ma- 
licious. In response to this glaring usurpation, Virginia 
declared through her legislature that in case of a deliber- 
ate, palpable and dangerous violation of the constitution- 
al compact by the general government, the States, the 
parties to that compact, were in duty bound to interpose 
for the preservation of their liberties. Virginia's daught- 
er, Kentucky, also asserted this doctrine in still more 
emphatic language. 

Immense efforts were now made by the Federalists to 
win over to their cause the aged Patrick Henry; and 
their efforts were, strange to say, so successful that the 
man who had not hesitated to advocate the secession of 
the colonies from the mother country because of par- 
liamentary taxation, the man who had opposed Virgin- 
ia's ratification of the Constitution because he dreaded 
and predicted just such usurpations as had now taken 
place, was induced to take the side of congressional des- 
potism against the liberties of the States. By what arts 
he was brought to this, need not here be discussed. Suf- 
fice it to say that he made a speech at Charlotte Court 
House in March, 1799, of such surpassing eloquence that 
tears are said to have flowed from many eyes at his 
fervid appeals for harmony and peace. 

That John Randolph, a slender, beardless stripling of 



16 JOHN RANDOLPH, 

twenty-six, who looked little more than sixteen, should 
have risen to make his first political speech in reply to 
the greatest orator of all time, is a most astonishing fact 
and sheds much light upon his character. It shows in 
the first place, that the Charleston bookseller who had 
seen him three years before was not far wrong in saying 
that he possessed "as much as- 
sumed self-consequence as any 
two-footed animal" he had ever 
seen. But it may be mentioned 
that Henry himself had been only 
twenty-seven when he had so be- 
witched the jury in the Parsons' 
Cause as to make them trample 
law and justice under foot. And, 
however rash it may have been 
in young Randolph to measure 
his strength against that of the 
great Revolutionary Hero, the event showed that his 
boldness was fully justified. For, while the prestige and 
eloquence of Patrick Henry insured his election to the 
Legislature, the power with which his youthful oppo- 
nent wielded the very weapons which his "political fath- 
er" had formerly forged insured his own election to Con- 
gress. That he dared to face Henry at all showed moral 
courage of no common order. That the audience who 
had just been thrilled by the magic tones of the "forest- 
born Demosthenes" should have even listened to the 
youth whom they had known before, if at all, chiefly as 
a .lashing rider of fast horses, is sufficiently strange. But 




Patrick Henry. 



JOHN RANDOLPH, 17 

that they not only listened, but heeded, and elected the 
young speaker to Congress, is a fact that speaks volumes 
in proof of his commanding ability. It demonstrates al- 
so the good feeling and good sense of his constituents— 
"such constituents," he long afterwards called them, "as 
man never had before, and never will have again"- — that, 
while honoring Patrick Henry for his past services, the\ 
nevertheless stood firm for constitutional liberty and ral- 
lied around the young defender of freedom. 

John Randolph served in Congress from 1799 till 1813; 
was then defeated; was re-elected in 181 5; declined elec- 
tion in 1 Si 7; returned to Congress in 1819; was elected 
Senator in December, 1825, an( l served till March, 1827; 
was elected in April to the House; declined election in 
1829; served in the Virginia Constitutional Convention 
of 1829-30; went as minister to Russia in 1830, and re- 
turned to Virginia in November, 1831; was elected to the 
House in 1833, but died in June. 

.Such is the bare chronological summary of his public 
services; but as lack of space forbids a detailed survey of 
his whole career, it seems better to treat it topically rath- 
er than in strict chronological order. 

To appreciate his political views, it is necessary to 
glance briefly at the origin and nature of the Constitution, 
and to grasp firmly certain facts that are nowadays fre- 
quently ignored. 

In the Continental Congresses,and also in the Congress- 
es under the Old Constitution, or "Articles of Confeder- 
ation," there were not two Houses, as at present, but on- 
ly one; and in that one House each State, whatever its 



ig JOHN RANDOLPH. 

population or the number of its delegates, had only one 
vote. Congress had no power to levy any tax whatever, 
but could only issue "requisitions" for amounts appor- 
tioned to the several States — which requisitions were 
heeded or not, exactly as the States saw fit. 

Just as independent nations are accustomed, when mak- 
ing treaties of peace, to declare these treaties perpetual, 
so the Old Constitution not only twice asserted that the 
Union should be perpetual, but solemnly plighted and 
pledged the faith of the States to observe inviolably all 
the Articles, and make no alteration at any time in any 
of them, unless agreed to by Congress and confirmed by 
the legislatures of every State. 

No language could be stronger. Each State was sol- 
emnly pledged never to leave the Union, and never to 
sanction any change in the Constitution unless approved 
by unanimous consent of the States. 

Yet, evidently, all this emphatic language meant no 
more, and was intended to mean no more, than that used 
by nations when they make treaties of peace, or than a 
man means when he signs himself "your humble servant" 
at the close of a letter. The whole was but a form of 
words, and the thirteen sovereign States interpreted them 
exactly according to the good pleasure of each. The 
Articles proving unsatisfactory, and various proposed a- 
mendments having failed to receive unanimous consent, 
the legal requirement that Congress should first agree to 
all amendments was calmly ignored, and a "Convention" 
of delegates from twelve States (Rhode Island refusing to 
participate) was elected in 1787 to propose amendments. 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 19 

In this Convention, as in Congress, each State had but 
one vote, and the body as a whole could do nothing what- 
ever except submit its proposals to the consideration of 
each sovereign State. 

The amendments proposed, however, were so numer- 
ous and so radical as to change materially the nature of 
the league. Their work being done, eleven of the States 
deliberately seceded from the Union (in spite of the sol- 
emn pledge that it should be "perpetual,") and, leaving 
Rhode Island and North Carolina out in the cold, ratified 
the new Constitution and elected a President, Senate 
and House of Representatives under its provisions. 

It was in 1788 — '89, therefore, and not in i860 — '61, 
that secession first took place in this country (unless we 
go back to the secession of the thirteen colonies from the 
British Empire.) 

Remembering that the Convention of 1787 had no le- 
gal authority whatever, it is evident that the chance phras- 
eology of the mere preamble to the Constitution had no 
binding power. The preamble to a document is not the 
document itself, but merely states in general terms the 
objects at wt. _n the document aims. 

But if there was ever a man intimately acquainted 
with the provisions of the Constitution, that man 
was John Randolph of Roanoke, who made it the busi- 
ness of his life to guard with eternal vigilance the liber- 
ties which it guaranteed. He w T as the watchful champi- 
on of the stockholders against the directors, and stood at 
times almost alone in denouncing the insidious encroach- 
ments which unscrupulous politicians of his own as well 



MMIX RANDOLPH. 



as of the opposite party were ever ready to make upon 
the rights of the States. Ceaselessly guarding not mere- 
ly the citadel, but the remotest outworks of the Consti- 
tution, he was sometimes accused of riding a hobby, by 
those who were ready to sacrifice a principle for a mo- 
mentary a d v a n- 
tage, or who did 
not know, as he 
did, the univei sal 
tendency of legis- 
lative bodies to use 
even the most tri- 
fling precedents in 
order to justify 
further u s u r p a- 
tions. 

It must l>e ad- 
mitted, however, 
that even John 
Randolph's keen 
eye occasionally 
failed t detect the 
poison of centrali 
zation. Such was 
particularly the case with the Louisiana purchase, 
for which Jefferson himself admitted that he had no 
constitutional warrant. It is at least doubtful, how- 
ever, whether Jefferson was technically correct in this 
"pinion. The Constitution certainly grants to the 
Presidi nl and Senate conjointly, the power to make 




Thomo?. Jeffei on Late in Life. 



JOHN* RANDOLPH. 21 

treaties; and it would seem, therefore, that as Louisi- 
ana was purchased in accordance with a formal 
treaty, the act was technically constitutional. John Ran- 
dolph, at least, considered it so. But, if we look to the 
spirit as well as to the letter of the Constitution, it may 
well be questioned whether the purchase of so vast a 
region, and the subsequent admission of numerous States 
carved out of that region, without the unanimous consent 
of the thirteen original States, were in accord with the 
spirit of the agreement between them, To promote the 
general welfare was the object of that agreement, not the 
special welfare of any particular class or section. 
But, as far the larger portion of the Louisiana territory 
was north of Mason's and Drxon's line, it is clear that 
the purchase of this region with money belonging to all 
the States, has ultimately benefited the Northern group 
far more than the Southern. The sentiment of devotion 
to State Rights, moreover, was inevitably weaker among 
the miscellaneous population of the new Western States, 
without traditions or history, than in the original thirteen. 
Being the creatures of the Union instead of its creators, 
the Western States inevitably looked more to the federal 
government, and were more ready to call centralized 
power to their aid in any project they might have in view. 
Strange to say, it seemed to be thought at the time 
that, because the southern end of the territory was then 
the more populous, the Louisiana purchase was a measure 
hostile to the North; and when the bill for admitting the 
State of Louisiana to the Union was before the House in 
181 1, Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts declared that such 



22 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

admission would be an "atrocious usurpation of power," 
and said: "it is my deliberate opinion, that, if this bill 
passes, the bonds of this union are, virtually, dissolved; 
that the States which compose it are free from their mor- 
al obligations, and that as it will be the right of all, so it 
will be the duty of some, to prepare, definitely, for a sep- 
aration: amicably, if they can; violently, if they must." 

At the time of the Louisiana purchase, John Randolph 
did not foresee its ultimate results. But when his eyes 
were at length opened, he candidly confessed his error, 
and the bitter regret he felt at having committed it. 

In regard to the embargo, he has been accused of in- 
consistency and fickleness. It is true that, after moving, 
on Dec. n, 1807 (when Jefferson's message reached the 
House) that an embargo be laid (which motion was ta- 
bled), he voted against the amended Senate Embargo 
Act ten days later. But, as the debate was secret, we do 
not know what reasons he gave for his opposition, while 
we do know that he wrote to Judge J. H. Nicholson on 
Dec. 24 and declared that peculiar circumstances had in- 
duced him to oppose the embargo, "otherwise a favorite 
measure." 

Further reflection brought Randolph to the conviction 
that the embargo was not only inexpedient, but also un- 
constitutional. For, on April 7, 1808, he said: 

"I ask any gentleman to point out that clause of the 
Constitution by which this House possesses the power 

of laying an embargo The power is not 

to be found in the Constitution. It may be an im- 
plied power, from the power to regulate commerce; but 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 23 

regulation is one thing and annihilation is another. As 
the Constitution prohibits us from laying a duty on ex- 
portation, a fortiori, we ought to be prohibited from re- 
straining it altogether." Mr. Garland, Randolph's chief 
biographer, thinks he was opposed only to an indefinite 
embargo, but favored one for sixty or ninety days, as a 
preparation for war. In this he is mistaken. Just such 
an embargo was laid in 181 2 as a war measure, but Ran- 
dolph denounced it vigorously in these words: 

"I have been for a pacific policy; but if we are to go 
to war, take off the embargo! Do not, in the style of San- 
grado, deplete us by way of preparation for battle. Give 
us beefsteaks and porter, if we are to fight, and not wat- 
er-gruel and the lancet." 

The more he thought, indeed, about embargoes in ev- 
ery form, the more he opposed them. "We quarrelled 
about impressed American seamen," said he (April 7, 
1808,) "and commenced a system which produced conse- 
quences, the remedy for which is an embargo; and we 
give up all our seamen, for they are not to be embargoed; 
they will slip out. Great Britain has now not only all 

her own seamen but a great many of ours — 

and I am not surprised to learn that in England the em- 
bargo is a most popular measure; .... We differ about 
some seamen, and we give them all up. We differ about 
a particular branch of trade, and we give up all trade. 
We surrender to Great Britain all the commerce of the 

world, and what more can she ask? I therefore 

am not one of those who approve the embargo; .... 
commerce and agriculture are lingering and must die,un- 



24 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

dcr its operation." And again: "The operation of the 
embargo is to furnish rogues with an opportunity of get- 
ting rich at the expense of honest men yon 

are teaching your merchants .... to disregard their 
oath for the sake of profit." 

On Feb. 3, 1809, he expressed the "belief that the popu- 
larity of no man whom God ever made,conld have endured 
the test which that of the present President of the United 
States has not merely endured, but gone through with 
victory. There could not have been so strong a proof of 
the deep-seated love, and unqualified approbation of that 
man, as his having been politically able to support the 

weight of that experiment But it is asked, what 

substitute would I propose for the embargo. None .... 
Shall a man refuse to be cured of a cancer unless you will 
provide him with a substitute/ But if I were asked what 
the nation is to do after repealing the embargo? my an- 
swer is ready France claims the power to issue 

certain decrees, on the ground of England's having 
usurped the empire of the ocean. Von resist that usur- 
pation. Those decrees, then, are not in any respect ap- 
plicable to you; for I understand your non-resistance to 
be the sole alleged cause of those decrees. England re- 
taliates the system — why? Because, as she says, you do 
not resist it. France issues the decrees because you do 
not resist 1 as she alleges) the British orders — England is- 
sues her orders because you do not resist the French de- 
crees. Now, I would resist both, and if either construe 
that resistance (which they have both called upon you to 
make) into wat, and do notwithstanding, capture your 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 25 

armed ships, why then, sir, you have nothing left but to 
annoy them by every means in your power." "I look 
upon the embargo as the most fatal measure that ever 
happened in this country — as the most calamitous event 

we have lifted the veil which concealed our 

weakness — we have exposed our imbecility. The veil 
of the temple of the Constitution is rent in twain; the 
nakedness of the fathers of the country, has been exposed 
to their unnatural, impious children. That is our situa- 
tion. You never can redeem it. The Constitution has 
received a wound that ages cannot heal. 1 ' 

From December, 1801, till March, 1807, John Ran- 
dolph was chairman of the Ways and Means Committee 
of the House, being appointed by Nathaniel Macon, the 
Speaker, a man whose sterling character and sound sense 
so attracted Randolph, that they became warm and life- 
long friends — Randolph mentioning Macon in his last 
will as "the best and purest and wisest man I ever knew. ,, 
Macon, like Randolph, was a strict constructionist of the 
Constitution and an ardent adherent of Republican prin- 
ciples — principles which Randolph declared to be: "Love 
of peace, hatred of offensive war; jealousy of the State 
Governments towards the General Government, and the 
influence of the Executive Government over the co-ordi- 
nate branches of that Government; a dread of standing 
armies; a loathing of public debt, taxes and excises; ten- 
derness for the liberty of the citizen; jealousy, Argus-eyed 

jealousy, of the patronage of the President 

Principle does not consist in names. Federalism is ;i real 
thing— not a spectre, a shadow, a phantom. It is a liv 



26 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

ing addition to the power of the General Government, in 
preference to the power of the States; partiality for the 
Executive power, in distinction to that of the co-ordinate 
Departments of the Government; the support of great 
military and naval forces, and of an 'energetic' adminis- 
tration of the Government. That is what is called Fed- 
eralism I care not with whom I vote; I will be 

true to my principles." 

Such were the principles of the two parties; and Ran- 
dolph, who greatly admired his illustrious kinsman, Jef- 
ferson, co-operated heartily and efficiently with the Pres- 
ident for four or five years. In spite of an education lit- 
tle tending to fit him for the arduous and prosaic labors 
of the Ways and Means Committee, he was an active, 
energetic and alert chairman — preparing his estimates 
with care, and meeting hostile critics in debate, with clear 
reasoning or pungent wit. And not only was he chair- 
man of this all-important standing committee, but was 
very frequently a member, sometimes chairman, of select 
committees on various subjects, and exercised his keen 
and penetrating intellect upon nearly every question of 
importance. Sneers have sometimes been levelled at him 
because he fathered little positive legislation. But those 
who sneer for such a reason have no understanding of his 
principles. In his view of both constitutionality and ex- 
pediency, the business of Congress was simply to make 
the absolutely necessary appropriations for a strictly eco- 
nomical administration of a government with the fewest 
possible functions. He believed in the capacity of men 
to take care of themselves without being either coddled 




John Randolph, at 33 Years of Age. 
From the Original Painting by Gilbert Stuart. 



28 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

or meddled with by lawgivers. "For my part," said lie 
in 1822, "I wish we could have done nothing but talk, 
unless, indeed, we had gone to sleep, for many years 
past; .... give me fifty speeches, I care not how dull 
or stupid, rather than one law on the statute book/ 1 

All magnificent schemes for spending money and open- 
ing the doors to jobbery, all meddlesome interference with 
the laws of trade or the liberties of the citizen all Jingo- 
ism and humbug humanitarianism were intolerable in 
his eyes. 

Feeling "Argus-eyed jealousy" of executive patrcnage, 
md knowing how easy it is for Emperor, King 01 Presi- 
dent to bribe members of the legislature by giving them 
the disposal oi offices, he- wished to reduce the number 
of these to a minimum. In accordance with which prin- 
ciple he succeeded in repealing the internal taxes, not 
only because they had led to such troubles as the Whis- 
1 .< \ Rebellion, but also because their collection requires 
far more officials than that of import duties. 

And so, too, in regard to the reduction of the army and 
navy. They are expensive; they magnify the power of 
the executive; and they are dangerous to civil liberty. 
Hence he believed that they should be kept strictly down 
to a minimum. Large armies and navies tempt nations 
into unnecessary wars, not only because of a natural de- 
sire to experiment with these costly instruments after 
once creating them, but because it is the interest of the 
officers to promote war in order to gain opportunities for 
glory and promotion. 

Randolph's fust speech of appreciable length in Con- 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 29 

gress was made on Jan. 9, 1800, in favor of reducing; the 
army. 

"I oppose the establishment of a standing army in this 
country, not only as a useless and enormous expense, but 
upon the ground of the Constitution. The spirit of that 
instrument and the genius of a free people are equally 
hostile to this dangerous institution, which ought to be 
resorted to (if at all) only in extreme cases of difficulty 

and danger If ever a hostile nation should be 

rash enough to attempt an invasion of these States, it is 
upon the militia that we must rely for the defense of their 

own rights and everything that is dear to man 

I did hope, sir, that our remote distance from the great 
disturbers of human repose, would have permitted us to 
be exempted from those perpetual alarms, those armings 
and counter-armings, which have raised the national 
debt of Britain to its present astonishing amount, and 
which sends her laborers supperless to bed 

"Our citizens are confident in their strength; they 
know themselves to be capable of protecting their own 
property and liberties; they do not want their noses to be 
held to the grindstone to pay protectors.' 1 

Twelve years later he said: 

"Let not gentlemen deceive themselves— the army of 
the present day is not the army of the Revolution — Gen- 
eral Wilkinson is not General Washington. A more cor- 
rupt military body never existed than the Praetorian 
band There are in the Army many worthy, gal- 
lant spirits; but, taken in the mass, it is cankered to the 
core, I recollect the evidence which I was compelled 



30 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

to take in the trial of Aaron Burr. I know by whom 
Bnrr was received, and supplied with arms ont of the 
public stores, with aids — orderly sergeants, I believe, they 
were called — and I have seen these very persons since 
promoted." 

On April 4, 1808, he opposed increasing the regular 
army, declaring that in case of invasion the additional 
force proposed (6000 men) was wholly inadequate, and 
that reliance must be placed upon the militia; and the 
next day he said: 

"The system of embargo is one system, withdrawing 
from every conquest, quitting the arena, flying the pit; 
the system of raising troops and fleets of whatever sort, 

is another, and opposite to that dormant state 

This system of expensive Military Establishment . . . does 
not comport with your system of no commerce. They 
are at war with each other and cannot go on together; . . 
My worthy friend from Georgia [Troup] has said that 
the tigress, prowling for food for her young, may steal 
upon you in the night. I would as soon attempt to fence 
a tiger out of my plantation with a four-railed fence, as 
to fence out the British navy with this force. It is be- 
cause she may come in the night and choose her point of 
attack, that this force is incompetent; for that very reas- 
on, sir, you ought to be prepared; not with 6000 men, 
but with every man, at every point." 

His opinion of the class of men that enlisted in the 
regular army was very low, and he had created a great 
stir by speaking of them as "ragamuffins" in Jan., 1S00. 
Eight years later he said: "The regular army consists 



JOHN RANDOLPH. p 

not of men like the militia, but of the scouring of jails 
and lazarettos, not your own merely, but of Europe." 
And again; "A standing army is the death of which all 
Republics have died." 

For the militia he had a high regard, as being the cit- 
izens themselves in arms for the defense of their own lib- 
erties; and on Dec. 16, 1811, he said: 

"I will ever uphold the militia; and I detest standing 

armies, as the profligate instruments of despotism 

They will support any and every existing Govern- 
ment. In all history I remember only one instance 
of their deserting their Government and taking part 
with the people; and that was when the Duke of Or- 
leans had bribed the army of the last of the Bour- 
bon kings. A mercenary soldier is disgusting to the eye 
of reason, republicanism, and religion. Yet, that 'mere 
machine of murder,' rude as it is, has been the manufac- 
turer of all the Caesars and Cromwells, and Bonapartes 

of the earth; Are we to forget as chimerical, 

our notions of this institution, which we imbibed from 
our very cradles, which are imprinted on our Bills of 
Rights and Constitutions, which we avowed under the 
reign of John Adams? Are they to be scourged out of us 
by the birch of the unfledged political pedagogues of the 
day?" 

And in 181 6 he said that nothing was so likely to lead 
the country into war "as an overgrown Military Estab- 
lishment. Military men were fond of glory, the consti- 
tuent elements of which were blood and taxes; ....... 

Before another three and twenty years should elapse, there 



32 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

would be anothei harvest of glory to be reaped; and the 
same song would be sung ovei and ovei again, till at last 
it would fare with the United States, as it fared with 
Great Britain, who was saddled with a debt which sent 
her laborers at night supperless to bed." 

His views of the navy were similar. It is true that 
on April 17, 1802, he said he "did not desire to starve the 
navy;" that Ik- said at a time (Get. 14, 1804), when Brit- 
ish frigates were searching American vessels for contra- 
band goods and British deserters, that he woidd vote a 
naval force to blow these frigates out of the water; and 
that two days later he told the House that our navy ought 
to be used for defending our ports, even though annihi- 
lated in repelling British insults. It may be that he had 
not yet carefully looked into the maritime code of inter- 
national law; or it may be that he was at this time mere- 
ly angry, as Mr. Henry Adams says, and had forgotten 
his principles. 

But at all events he was for many years afterwards 
uniformly opposed, for various reasons, to increasing the 
navy. As a matter of course, for example, he opposed 
Jefferson's astounding scheme of keeping our few ships 
of war in the Eastern Branch and building a "mosquito 
fleet" of infinitesimal gunboats, to be carefully hauled 
ashore and kept under sheds in time of peace, while each 
was to be manned by from five to seven militiamen and a 
single gun in time of war. In regard to this scheme, Ran- 
dolph declared that it was no time "to make ducks and 
drakes" of the people's dollars, "to waste them in mill- 
pond projects of childish amusement. 1 ' In 1S10 he said: 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 33 

"I have ever believed that the people of the United 
States were destined to become, at some period or other, 
a great Naval Power. ........ But I believe, if any- 
thing could retard or eventually destroy it — if anything 
could strangle in the cradle, the infant Hercules of the 
American Navy — it would be the very injudicious mode 
in which that power has been attempted to be premature- 
ly brought into action, and kept in action, during the 
last administrations. Again, a Naval Power necessarily 
grows out of tonnage and seamen. We have not only 
driven away our tonnage, but have exerted ourselves with 
no little zeal, even at this very session, to prevent its ev- 
er coining back. We have not been willing to consent 
that vessels polluted by the unpardonable sin of a breach 
of the embargo should return 

"Sir, shall we keep up an expensive Naval Establish- 
ment, necessarily driving us into loans and taxes, for the 
protection of a commerce which the Government itself 
says we shall not carry on; and when members of this 
House tell us that the natural protection of commerce 

is the annihilation of it? We were told that our 

fleet might be Copenhagencd, and that it was therefore 

necessary to stow it away here But, sir, if our 

object really be to prevent our fleet from being Copenha- 
gened, we had better put it above the Falls of Niagara. 
We are to have a navy for the protection of com- 
merce, and all our measures in relation to it are calcu- 
lated on the basis of keeping it (poor thing! like some 

sickly child) out of harm's way! I had forgotten 

the gunboats; . . . Children must have toys and baubles, 



34 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

and we must indulge ourselves in an expense of many 
millions on this ridiculous plaything!" 

Like others, Randolph was thrilled, however, by the 
brilliant achievements of our navy in the war of 1812, 
and did not proclaim, as the pious Massachusetts Legis- 
lature did, that "it did not become a religious people to 
express any approbation of military or naval exploits not 
immediately defensive." But he fully recognized the 
folly of the war, and was entirely capable of doing jus- 
tice to the British. For, on Dec. 9, 181 2, after compli- 
menting the gallantry of our sailors, he proceeded to as- 
sert the right of England to seize her deserters, and asked 
what would have happened, had a certain Benedict Ar- 
nold been captured by the Americans. A month later he 
said: 

"But it may be said that .... if a search of our ships 
be permitted for British seamen, they may actually take 
American seamen. Sir, there is no doubt of the fact that 
by mistake, sometimes by wilful misconduct, on the part 
of officers engaged in the search, such a thing may hap- 
pen. But, should we not think it exceedingly strange 
that the misconduct of an officer of the American Gov- 
ernment, in one case in twenty if you will, should be a 

cause of war for any nation against us? One thing 

is certain; that the right of search does practically exist, 
and has been acknowledged by all nations." 

One of Jefferson's ideas in wishing to keep our war- 
ships in the Eastern Branch was that they "would be un- 
der the immediate eye of the department, and would re- 
quire but one set of plunderers to take care of them." 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 35 

So far as this desire to minimize the supply of federal 
pap was concerned, Randolph heartily agreed with him. 
In opposition, e. g., to Calhoun's plan for a great navy, 
he said, Jan. 16, 1816: 

"He may vote the money as a patriot, if he follows 
that vote through all the different ramifications of its ex- 
ecution, he will find it in sinecure pockets, or given for 
rotten timber; he will find it by the right hand, received 
from the Treasury by the navy agent of the Government, 
and he will find it paid with the left hand into the pock- 
et of the same agent — that virtuous man will not let his 

left hand know what his right hand doeth as to the 

plunderers of the public, I meet them on the avenue as 
familiarly as the lords in England, are said to meet the 
blacklegs at the gaming table — I see them rising from 
nothing by the stilts of fat contracts into sumptuous pala- 
ces." 

Such being Randolph's views concerning the army 
and navy, aggressive war was necessarily an abomination 
in his eyes — not the least objection to it being that he 
regarded it as utterly unconstitutional. The Constitution 
empowers Congress "to provide for the common defence 
and general welfare of the United States." It grants no 
power whatever for offensive attack upon other countries, 
or for defending and providing for the welfare of preda- 
tory banditti in the provinces of foreign powers. "I de- 
clare in the face of day," said Randolph, "that this Gov- 
ernment was not instituted for the purposes of foreign 

war I call that offensive war, which goes out of 

our jurisdiction and limits for the attainment or protec- 



36 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

tion of objects, not within those limits and that jurisdic- 
tion. As in 1 798 I was opposed to this species of war- 
fare, because I believed it would raze the Constitution to 
its very foundation — so, in 1806, I am opposed to it, and 
on the same grounds I fear if you go into a for- 
eign war, for a circuitous unfair carrying trade, you will 
come out without your Constitution. Have not you 
contractors enough yet in this House? Or do you want 
to be overrun and devoured by commissaries, and all the 
vermin of contract? I fear, sir, that what are called ''the 
energy men' will rise up again — men who will burn the 
parchment. We shall be told that .... we must give 
the President power to call forth the resources of the na- 
tion. That is, to filch the last shilling from our pock- 
ets — to drain the last drop of blood from our veins. 

"I am against giving this power to any man, be he 
who he may. The American people must either with- 
hold this power, or resign their liberties For my 

part, I will never go to war but in self-defence. I have 
no desire for conquests — no ambition to possess Nova 
Scotia. I hold the liberties of this people at a higher 
rate." 

"We have it in our power to remain free and at peace. 
Our firesides are safe. Our ports and harbors may be 
defended; but we have imbibed a portion of that spirit 
which lost the angels their seat in heaven. We are about 
to throw aside our peaceful state and mingle in the dread- 
ful conflict of European ambition and disorder." 

Xot only the war of 181 2 itself, but the whole series 
of non-importation, embargo and non-intercourse acts, 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 37 

which, though intended to avoid the war, in reality led 
up to it, were bitterly opposed by Randolph. 

Opposing Gregg's resolution for non-importation of 
English goods, he said on March 5, 1806: "Ifwarisnec- 




The Battle ot New Orleans— The Decisive Battle in the War of lal2. 



essary — if we have reached this point — let us have war. 
But while I have life, I will never consent to these in- 
cipient war measures, which, in their commencement 
breathe nothing but peace, though they plunge us at 
last into war." And in reference to Gregg's wild claim 
that we were an over-match for Great Britain on the sea, 
he said in that tone of supercilious scorn which made 
him so many enemies: 



38 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

"It is mere waste of time to reason with such persons. 
They do not deserve anything like serious refutation. 
The proper arguments for such statesmen are a straight 
waistcoat, a dark room, water gruel and depletion." And 
in the same powerful speech he asked: "What is the ques- 
tion in dispute? The carrying trade. What part of it? 
that carrying trade which covers enemy's prop- 
erty, and carries the coffee, the sugar, and other West 

India products to the mother country It is not for 

the honest carrying trade of America, but for this mush- 
room, this fungus of war — for a trade which, as soon as 
the nations of Europe are at peace, will no longer exist, 
it is for this that the spirit of avaricious traffic would 
plunge us into war 

"I deem it no sacrifice of dignity to say to the Levi- 
athan of the deep — we are unable to contend with you 
in your own element, but if you come within our actual 
limits, we will shed our last drop of blood in their defence. 
I am averse to a naval war with any nation what- 
ever What! shall this great mammoth of the 

American forest leave his native element,and plunge into 
the water in a mad contest with the shark? Let him be- 
ware that his proboscis is not bitten off in the engage- 
ment." 

Continuing the next day, he said: "But I am asked if 
we shall submit to a tame and dastardly abandonment 
of our rights; and by those, too, who have made a cow- 
ardly surrender of our best interests and our honor, when 
we were well able to maintain them? I beg leave to reply 
to this question by another: Are you prepared to assert 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 39 

them; to go all lengths to enforce them? In what consists 
true dignity? In vaporing in the newspapers? In printed 
handbills and resolutions? Or in taking ground which 
you can and will maintain; which no change of fortune 

shall compel you to desert? And what constitutes 

false dignity? Playing the part of a Bobadil — bullying 
England and truckling to Spain — I beg pardon, there is 
no Spain — bullying England and truckling to France. . 
.... With all their bravery, many a man who would 
willingly meet the corsairs, or even the Dons and Mon- 
sieurs, would feel reluctant to be led to battle against a 
British fleet — and why, sir? Because, waiving other con- 
siderations, a great proportion of our seamen are foreign- 
ers — natives of Great Britain — who still feel prejudices 
for their parent country 

"If you want war, there is no doubt that you may have 
it. Great Britain will not submit to all the hardships 
and mischiefs of war, because you choose to call it peace. 
She will prefer open war to war in disguise; and I, sir, 
have no hesitation in saying that I am for no half-meas- 
ures I abhor this political quackery." 

Eight days later: "I say I am unwilling to grasp at a 
shadow and lose the substance — to jeopardize the whole 
commerce of the United States in a vain attempt to en- 
gross the commerce of the world But gentle- 
men reiterate the question, Will you do nothing? I have 
always thought it better to remain idle than to do what 
would be worse than nothing. But I would take this 
course: I would remonstrate with Great Britain; I would 
tell her of the wrongs done to the American people; I 



\o JOHN RANDOLPH. 

would tell her how absurd it was for her, under existing 
circumstances, to compel us to throw our weight into 
the scale of her enemy; I would put this question home 
to her, Are you mad enough to increase the number of 
your enemies?" 

More than six years later, when the crisis was ap- 
proaching, he said: "I know not how gentlemen, calling 
themselves Republicans, can advocate such a war. What 
was their doctrine in 1798-9, when the command of the 

army was reposed in the bosom of the Father of 

his Country, the sanctuary of a nation's love, the only 

hope that never came in vain! Republicans 

were then unwilling to trust a standing army, even to 
his hands who had given proof that he was above all hu- 
man temptation. Where now is the Revolutionary hero 
to whom you are about to confide this sacred trust? To 
whom will you confide the charge of leading the flower 

of our youth to the Heights of Abraham? Those 

who opposed the army then were indeed denounced as the 
partisans of France; just as the same men — some of them 
at least are now held up as the advocates of England; 
those firm and undeviating Republicans, who then dared, 
and now dare, to cling to the ark of the Constitution, to 
defend it even at the expense of their fame, rather than 
surrender themselves to the wild projects of mad ambi- 
tion 

"This war of conquest, a war for the acquisition of ter- 
ritory and subjects, is to be a new commentary on the 
doctrine that Republics are destitute of ambition — that 
the)- are addieted to peace, wedded to the happiness and 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 



t< 



safety of the great body of their people. But it seems 
this is to be a holiday campaign — there is to be no ex- 
pense of blood or treasure, on our part — Canada is to con- 
quer herself — she is to be subdued by the principles of 
fraternity. The people of that country are first to be se- 
duced from their allegiance, 
and converted into traitors, as 
preparatory to the making them 

good citizens 

"I am not surprised at the war 
spirit which is manifesting it- 
self in gentlemen from the 
South." 

On Feb. 25, 1812, he said: 
"No man who hears me will 
say that we have any cause of 
war now, that we had not eigh- 
teen months ago If our 

Treasury be empty, it is owing 
to our own acts. Repeal your 
non-importation act. Do away with your whole restrict- 
ive system — and, rather than do this, will this House 
plunge this nation into a foreign war, contrary to the pub- 
lic sentiment? Contrary to the wishes of many of those 
who are within the hearing of my voice, who may be 
pushed into a vote, which they wish, if possible, to 
avoid?" 

On May 6 he refers thus to the "yellow journals" of 
his time: "The war spirit is principally stimulated at this 
moment by those who have escaped from the tyranny 




Chair from Randolph's House. 

Now in Libby Prison War 

Museum, Chicago. 



42 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

(or justice, as it may be termed), of the British Govern- 
ment, long since the war of independence. Almost ev- 
ery leading press in the United States is conducted by 

persons of that description who, in resentment of 

the wrongs they have recently received from the Irish 
and British Governments, are now goading us to war; 
talking about American spirit; the spirit of our Revolu- 
tion; and of tarring and feathering the 'Tories,' as they 
have the matchless audacity to term the Whigs ot the 

Revolution I have no hesitation in averring that, 

if the session was to go over again, those gentlemen who 
have, from a yielding disposition, or a respect for the 
opinions of their violent friends, been swept down the 
current, would make an efficient and manly resistance; 
for I see no one, unless it be a very few, some one or two 
individuals for whom I profess to have the highest esteem, 
who will not be glad to get out of the scrape. But they 
have advanced to the brink of a precipice, and not left 
themselves room to turn." 

On Jan. 1 3, 1813, he said: ' l I rise with a heart saddened 
by the disgrace of our common country, and sickened by 
the way in which the business of the State has been man- 
aged The war in Europe brought to this country, 

among other birds of passage, a ravenous flock of neutra- 
lized carriers, which interposed the flag of neutrality, 
not only between the property, but even between the 
persons of the two belligerent Powers; and it was their 
clamor principally, aided by the representations of those 
of our merchants who saw and wished to participate in 
the gains of such a commerce, that the first step was 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 43 

taken in that policy of restriction, which it was then fore- 
seen would lead to the disastrous condition in which we 
now find ourselves. Yes, it was then foreseen and fore- 
told. What was then prophesied is now history. It is 
so. 'You,' said the prophet, 'are prospering beyond all 
human example. You, favorites of Almighty God, while 
all the rest of the world are scourged, and ravaged, and 
desolated by war, are about to enter upon a policy called 
preventive of war; a policy which comes into this House 
in the garb of peace, but which must end in war.' And 
in war it has ended." 

But let us return to Randolph's earlier career. With Jef- 
ferson's wise policy of economy and debt-reduction he 
was in thorough accord. "No man," said he, Jan 12, 
1807, "is more an advocate for the speedy reduction of 
the national debt than I am, but I wish the reduction of 
the debt, and the repeal of the taxes, to go on together. 
I hope to see the time when all the taxes of the General 
Government shall be repealed, except a small advalorem 
duty of five per cent." 

Furious at Jefferson's election to the presidency, the 
Federalists had determined to utilize the time left them 
before his inauguration in establishing a number of new 
federal judgeships. Naturally indignant at this scheme 
for entrenching the defeated party in a lot of life-tenure 
sinecures, Jefferson determined that the useless offices, 
hastily filled by John Adams's so-called "midnight" ap- 
pointments, should be abolished. Randolph seconded 
him ably in the House, and, in reply to the Federalist 
contention that Congress had no constitutional power to 



44 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

remove a judge during good behavior, he said: 

"Gentlemen have not, they cannot meet the distinc- 
tion between removing the judges from office for the pur- 
pose of putting in another person, and abolishing an of- 
fice, because it is useless or oppressive. Suppose the col- 
lectors of your taxes held their offices by the tenure of 
good behavior, would the abolition of your taxes have 
been an infraction of that tenure?" 

And with delicate discrimination and cogent logic he 
continued: "I am free to declare, that if the intent of 
this bill is to get rid of the judges, it is a perversion of 
your power to a base purpose; it is an unconstitutional 
act. If, on the contrary, it aims not at the displacing 
one set of men, from whom you differ in political opin- 
ion, with a view to introduce others, but at the gener- 
al good by abolishing useless offices, it is a constitu- 
tional act. The quo animo determines the nature of this 
act, as it determines the innocence or guilt of other acts. 

If you are precluded from passing this law, lest 

depraved men make it a precedent to destroy the in- 
dependence of your Judiciary, do you not concede that a 
desperate faction, finding themselves about to be dismissed 
from the confidence of their country, may pervert the 
power of erecting courts, to provide .... for their ad- 
herents and themselves?" 

These clear and forcible arguments prevailed; and the 
new judicial offices were abolished. Moreover, Judge 
Pickering was impeached for drunkenness and violence 
on the bench and removed. So far, the course of Jefferson 
and Randolph had been wise and proper. But the im- 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 45 

peachment of Judge Chase was a blunder. Chase richly 
deserved condemnation, it is true; and it is possible that 
(as Randolph thought), the impeachment might have 
succeeded, had it been tried three years sooner. It might 
possibly have succeeded also, had Randolph confined him- 
self to arraigning Chase simply for his partisan stump 
speeches from the bench. But, being no lawyer, and 
committing the mistake of making other charges that 
involved legal technicalities, Randolph was no match for 
the professional acumen of Luther Martin, the "bull-dog 
of federalism." 

It was Jefferson who had privately suggested the im- 
peachment, but it was Rando 1 ph who boldly and public- 
ly undertook it. All circumstances considered, he made 
a good fight. But his failure was complete. His defeat, 
moreover, left the judiciary stronger than ever; and John 
Marshall soon began to issue from the supreme bench 
those decisions which have tended so much toward con- 
solidation. With his usual keen insight Randolph had 
foreseen this danger, and had said, as early as Dec, T803: 

"If I were to point out the part of this Constitution 
which tends to consolidation, I should lay my hand on 
the Judiciary. The giving to that department jurisdic- 
tion not only under Federal laws, but cases between man 
and man, arising under the laws of a State, where one of 
the parties is a foreigner, or citizen of another State, and 
even between citizens of the same State under the bank- 
rupt system, is the strongest feature of consolidation in 
this Government." 

In January he asked: "Has it come to this, that an 



46 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

unrighteous judge may condemn whom he pleases to an 
ignominious death, without a hearing, in the teeth of the 
Constitution and laws, and that such proceedings should 
find advocates here? Shall we be told that judges have 
certain rights, and whatever the Constitution or laws 
may declare to the contrary we must continue to travel 
in the go-cart of precedent, and the injured remain unre- 
dressed? 1 ' — In spite of illness and lack of legal training, 
the speech in which he opened Chase's trial before the 
Senate was not unworthy of the great orator. 

Here are a few specimen sentences: "I ask this honor- 
able Court whether the prostitution of the bench of jus- 
tice, to the purpose of an hustings, is to be tolerated? 
We have nothing to do with the politics of the man. 
Let him speak, and write, and publish, as he pleases. 
This is his right in common with his fellow-citizens. 
The press is free. If he must electioneer and abuse the 
Government under which he lives, I know no law to pre- 
vent or punish him, provided he seeks the wonted the- 
atres for his exhibition. But shall a judge declaim on 
these topics from his seat of office? Shall he not put off 
the political partisan when he ascends the tribune? or 
shall we have the pure stream of public justice polluted 
with the venom of party virulence?" 

After the acquittal of Chase, Randolph moved a con- 
stitutional amendment empowering the President to re- 
move federal judges from office upon the joint address of 
the two Houses. Nor does his failure to have the amend- 
ment adopted prove the plan to have been unwise. It is 
the English mode of getting rid of incompetent or un- 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 47 

worthy judges, and works well. John Randolph loathed 
corruption in every form; and his keen insight into the 
various aspects under which it may show itself, appears 
plainly in the following reply to Smilie of Pennsylva- 
nia, who had asked whether Congress was indeed so 
corrupt. 

"The gentleman ought to know," said Randolph, "there 
are different sorts of corruption. There is a corruption 
of interest, that is number one; there is a corruption of 
timidity, which consists in men not saying what they 
think, that is number two; there is a corruption of Court 
influence — of party — and there is a corruption, which, 
though last is not least, the corruption of irreconcilable, 
personal animosity — a corruption which will engage a 
man to go all lengths to injure him whom he hates and 
despises, or rather, whom he cannot despise, because he 
hates." 

In Randolph's ear the very word caucus had a hateful 
sound, and he would have cut his own throat sooner than 
sacrifice a political or moral principle to party expedi- 
ency. His contempt for the man who, in obedience to 
the party lash, advocates a policy contrary to his convic- 
tions, was withering and without bounds. 

To the average congressman who spends his time, not 
in studying those great economic and political questions 
of w T hich his ignorance is so profound, but in providing 
his henchmen with federal offices, it will be a revelation 
to learn that Randolph declared (Dec. 13, 181 6), that he 
"would never compromise himself so far in his individual 
character, much less as a member of this House, as to ask 



48 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

of the Executive the appointment or removal, to or from 
any office of any individual;" and that, alluding, in the 
Virginia Convention of 1829-30, to recommendations for 
federal office, he exclaimed: "Thank God no man ever 
dared to approach ine, for my name to one of them." 

It was not by constructing a "machine" in his district, 
or by "mending his political fences" that he was elected 
again and again by his faithful constituents. Nor can we 
credit the idle gossip, which indicated that his success 
was due to alternate terrorism and flattery. The truth 
is that he cared little whether he was elected or not. 
Twice he positively declined election, and more than once 
he yielded reluctantly to the wishes of constituents proud 
of a representative of such brilliant abilities, and of in- 
tegrity so unbending that he would have gone to the 
stake rather than betray his trust or palter with the truth. 

Once only — on account of his courageous opposition to 
the war of 1 Si 2 — was he beaten, and then only by a man 
imported into his district for the purpose, and supported 
by the whole weight of the war party outside. Randolph 
fought hard in this campaign, and one of his hearers de- 
clared himself to have been swept along by his passion- 
ate eloquence "like a feather on the bosom of a cataract." 
But the outside pressure was too strong, and he was beat- 
en, because too sternly honest to yield to popular clamor. 

Randolph's hatred of corruption shone conspicuous in 
his treatment of the infamous "Yazoo" frauds. It was 
during his visit to Joseph Bryan that Georgia was ring- 
ing with denunciation of the corrupt legislature that had 
recently been bribed by four land companies to grant 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 49 

them, for a mere song, many millions of acres in the ter- 
ritory from which the States of Alabama and Mississippi 
have since been carved. 

When the gigantic swindle became public, the grand 
jury of every county but two declared the act unconsti- 
tutional; and the next legislature, having an"Anti- Yazoo" 
majority, did the same, and revoked the sale as null and 
void—the act being burnt by the common hangman, and 
expunged from the statute book. But, in spite of this, 
the fraudulent title to the land was bought up by the 
New England and Mississippi Land Co., (consisting 
largely of Northern speculators), which, after Georgia had 
ceded the land in question to the United States, petitioned 
Congress to pay them for it. 

At the head of this nefarious scheme was Gideon Grang- 
er, the Postmaster General, who actually had the effron- 
tery to act as the company's agent in presenting the 
claim to Congress. 

Madison, Gallatin and Levi Lincoln, being appointed 
to investigate the matter, reported in favor of a compro- 
mise. But Randolph set his face like flint against it. 

That Granger and the congressmen whom he bribed 
with post-office contracts, as well as others who had stock 
in the land company, were furious at Randolph's fierce 
resistance to their rascality goes without saying. Gran- 
ger made a tour of New England to organize a party to 
pull down Randolph; and Barnabas Bidwell, a Massa- 
chusetts congressman, became the leader of this Yazoo 
faction. 

To defy "a combination of northern democrats, federa- 



50 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

lists, and executive influence" was a thing which "re- 
quired no little courage," as Henry Adams admits, 
"and if there were selfish or personal motives behind his 
action they are not to be seen." Moreover, "he won his 
single-handed battle; the path of compromise was blocked, 
and he himself was now a great political power, for nev- 
er before had any man, living or dead, fought such a 
fight in Congress and won it." Not till 1814, when he 
had lost his seat, did the Yazoo men succeed in securing 
their prey. 

The Yazoo struggle was the first thing which brought 
Randolph into collision with the administration; but the 
foreign policy of the latter was soon to provoke such 
hostile criticism from him that an irremediable breach 
was the result. The boundaries of Louisiana being vague 
and undefined, disputes had arisen with Spain, and the 
United States had taken possession of Mobile. 

Further disputes arising which diplomacy failed to 
settle, and parties of Spaniards having actually trespassed 
upon the Mississippi territory, President Jefferson sent a 
warlike message to Congress on Dec. 3, 1805, but fol- 
lowed it up three days later by a secret message, saying 
that, while formal war might not be necessary, yet "force 
should be interposed to a certain degree," and that an 
appropriation of money was necessary. But the Presi- 
dent made no recommendation of any definite action; 
throwing the responsibility upon Congress. 

In the secret debate on this message Randolph is said 
to have made the "ablest and most eloquent speech ever 
heard on the floor of Congress," and the message was re- 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 



5' 



ferred to a select committee of which he was chairman. 
Calling on the President, he learned to his surprise that 
two millions were wanted towards purchasing Florida. 
But not only was Randolph opposed to this for other 
reasons; but, having once already shielded Jeff erson from 
responsibility by tak- 
ing the initiative in 
the Chase impeach- 
ment, he now frank- 
ly told the President 
that he declined hav- 
ing the responsibili- 
ty for the latter's 
plans again shifted 
to his shoulders. 

Not long afterwards 
he saw Secretary 
Madison, who told 
him that France 
would not permit 
Spain to adjust her 
differences with us; 
that France wanted money, and that we must give it to 
her, or have a Spanish and French war. 

Having long distrusted Madison, Randolph was now 
indignant at being called upon, as leader of the House, 
to father what he regarded as the utterly unworthy 
scheme of allowing France to blackmail us into bribing 
her to bully Spain. 

"Good morning, sir!" he therefore abruptly exclaimed 




James Madison. 



52 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

to the Secretary, "I see I am not calculated for a poli- 
tician." 

Scorning to stoop to methods which he held dishonora- 
ble, and defying the administration, it is not strange that 
his influence waned. But he was by no means political- 
ly dead; or, if so, was an uncommonly vigorous corpse, 
and made things extremely hot for the administration. 

"I have before protested, and I again protest," said he 
on March 5, 1806, "against secret, irresponsible, overrul- 
ing influence I speak of back-stairs influence — 

of men who bring messages to this House, which, al- 
though they do not appear on the Journals, govern its 

decisions Let not the master [Jefferson] and mate 

[Madison] go below when the ship is in distress, and 
throw the responsibility upon the cook and the cabin- 
boy. I said so when your doors were shut; I scorn to 
say less now that they are open. Gentlemen may say 
what they please. They may put an insignificant indi- 
vidual to the ban of the Republic — I shall not alter 
my course." 

Randolph strongly opposed the candidacy of Madison 
for the Presidency, and ardently advocated that of Mon- 
roe, who was glad to have his help, so long as there 
seemed a prospect of success, but promptly dropped him 
after Madison's election and his own elevation to the 
Secretaryship of State — conduct which Randolph natur- 
ally resented. 

The embargo had been a long step toward centraliza- 
tion; and not only the war of 181 2, but the other meas- 
ures of Madison's and Monroe's administrations carried 



John Randolph. 53 

the country in the same direction. The truth is that the 
party of strict construction and State Rights soon tossed 
its principles to the winds and gave itself up to the en- 
joyment of power. But, as time went on, Randolph more 
and more opposed 
federal usurpation 
in every shape,and 
lost no opportuni- 
ty to taunt the 
time-serving poli- 
ticians of his party 
with their incon- 
sistency. 

"In the course 
of my political ex- 
perience," said he 
in 1809, "I have 
found but two par- 
ties in all states — 
the ins and outs; 
the ins desirous so 
to construe the 
charter of the Government as to give themselves the great- 
est possible degree of patronage and wealth; and the outs 
striving so to construe it as to circumscribe — what ? 
Their own power? No, sir; their adversaries' power. 
But let the outs get in, and lay hold of the artillery of 
Government, and you will find their Constitutional scru- 
ples and arguments vanish like dew before the morning 
sun. No, sir; I have no faith in the declarations of par- 




James Monroe. 



54 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

ties, and, if we mean to guard the liberties of this State, 
we must watch the ins, be they who they may, be they 
Federalists or be they Republicans." 

The Bank question was one of those on which Repub- 
lican principles were abandoned. Jefferson and Madison 
had both argued that the charter of a bank by the feder- 
al government was unconstitutional, and they were right. 
Congress does have power to pass all laws "necessary and 
proper" to the carrying out of the powers specifically 
granted to it. But it is sheer nonsense to say that the 
old United States Bank — useful though it was — was nec- 
essary to the performance of the government's fiscal funct- 
ions. Food is necessary to the preservation of human 
life, but no special forms of food, as oysters or ice cream, 
are necessary; and the simple fact that the United States 
have actually enjoyed great prosperity during much of 
their history without a national bank, is proof that such 
a bank is not a necessity. 

The bank's charter expired in 1811, and Henry Clay's 
argument against a re-charter was simply overwhelming, 
while his right-about-face in 1816 was sophistry of the 
worst kind. But the war with England had vastly in- 
creased the forces of centralization, and the charter was 
granted. And what is more, Madison (who, being in 
power, was now a centralizer,) signed the bill — Madison, 
who had argued against its constitutionality with a force 
thus afterwards described by Randolph: "He, in that 
masterly and unrivalled report in the Legislature of Vir- 
ginia, which is worthy to be the text-book of every Amer- 
ican statesman, has settled this question But, sir, 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 



55 



I cannot but deplore — my heart aches when I think of 
it — that the hand which erected that monument of po- 
litical wisdom, should have signed the act to incorporate 
the present 
Bank of the 
United States." 
Of course 
Randolph also 
opposed the 
schemes of Clay 
and Calhoun 
for vast internal 
improvements 
by federal agen- 
cy. For many 
years the power 
"to establish 
post-roads" had 
meant simply 
the power to 
designate the 
existing roads 
over which mail 
should be car- 
ried. But the 

consolidationists now discovered that they could juggle 
with this phrase and make it mean to construct roads, 
canals, and pretty much anything else. Randolph op- 
posed all this both on grounds of unconstitutionality and 
because it opened up a boundless field for corrupt jobbery. 




John C. Calhoun. 



56 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

"Figure to yourself," said he, "a committee of this 
House determining on some road, and giving out the con- 
tracts to the members of both Houses of Congress, or to 
their friends, etc. Sir, if I had strength, I could show 

that the Asiatic plunder of Leadenhall street has 

not been more corrupting to the British Government than 
the exercise of such a power as this would prove to us." 
Those gigantic modern swindles, the river and harbor 
bills, prove the sagacity of his words. 

That great political prophet, Patrick Henry, had 
warned the people of his State that Congress would not 
confine itself to the powers enumerated in the Constitu- 
tion, but would claim all sorts of "implied 1 ' powers as 
well; and the ink upon the parchment was hardly dry 
before his prediction was fulfilled and the monstrous 
principle that Peter may be legally robbed to pay Paul 
was embodied in the tariff bill of 1789. 

But, although the fatal principle was recognized in the 
very title of this"Act for the encouragement and protect- 
ion of manufactures," still the highest advalorem duty 
was fifteen per cent, and the main object of the act was 
revenue. But when the embargo and the war of 18 12 
had well-nigh destroyed American commerce and divert- 
ed much capital into manufactures, and when the restor- 
ation of peace had exposed the latter to the competition 
of English goods, the manufacturers besieged Congress 
with petitions for legalized permission to take money 
from the pockets of other people and transfer it to their 
own. Then and there these mendicants should have 
been informed that, having put their capital into mauu- 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 57 

factures of their own free will, knowing that neither the 
embargo nor the war would last forever, and having, 
moreover, reaped enormous profits during the stoppage 
of intercourse with England, they must now be content 
to stand on their own feet without federal props. But 
even then the hirelings of the lobby were mightier 
than the unorganized mass of citizens, and skilfully 
took advantage of the spirit of spreadeagleism fostered 
by the war— a spirit which proclaimed that AMERICA 
must have her own manufactures, even if the vast ma- 
jority of americans were robbed in the process. Up with 
the NATION ! Down with the individual! Up with the 
imperial despotism! Down with the citizen's right to 
buy his clothes or his tools in the cheapest market! 

It was a splendid theme for "patriotic" oratory. But 
of course the orators said nothing of its dishonesty and 
tyranny; and, to do them justice, it is probable that most 
of them were too blind to see it. 

But while orators thundered and the Eagle screamed; 
while the unthinking populace shouted with applause; 
there was one man — standing well-nigh alone — who saw 
through the sophistry and looked deep down into the 
bottom of the business. John Randolph opposed the tar- 
iff of 1 816, radically and on principle. Fourteen years 
before he had declared that "every dollar laid on foreign 
productions operates as a tax on the consumer, and as a 
bounty upon our own productions;" and he now flatly 
called the tariff bill "a scheme of public robbery." 

And in his great speech of April 15, 1824, he said: 
"This bill is an attempt to reduce the country South of 



58 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

Mason and Dixon's line and East of the Alleghany Moun- 
tains, to a state of worse than colonial bondage; a state 
to which the domination of Great Britain was, in my judg- 
ment, far preferable; .... It ought to be met, and I 
trust it will be met, in the Southern country, as was the 
Stamp Act." Countless congressional usurpations 
had taught him the vanity of the idea that a written Con- 
stitution can restrain an unscrupulous majority; and he 
continued: "I do not stop here, sir, to argue about the con- 
stitutionality of this bill; I consider the Constitution a 
dead letter; I consider it to consist, at this time, of the 
power of the General Government and the power of the 
States — that is the Constitution. You may intrench 
yourself in parchment to the teeth, says Lord Chatham, 
the sword will find its way to the vitals of the Constitu- 
tion. I have no faith in parchment, sir; I have no faith 
in the abracadabra of the Constitution; I have no faith 
in it. I have faith in the power of that Commonwealth, 
of which I am an unworthy son; in the power of those 
Carolinas, and of that Georgia, in her ancient and utmost 
extent, to the Mississippi." 

But if the orators of the fervid, magnetic type were 
determined to fence off the rest of the world from Amer- 
ica by a high tariff wall, it is not to be supposed that 
they contemplated keeping the American Eagleat home. 
On the contrary, that majestic bird was to range the 
heavens at will and to swoop down with beak and talons 
upon any nation that managed its affairs in a manner not 
approved by congressional omniscience. At Turks and 
Spaniards he was to glare defiantly; while to Greeks and 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 59 

South Americans he was to donate a few of his tail-feath- 
ers, that these people, too, might learn how to soar. The 
tariff was to keep Europe from flooding America with 
cheap goods; but no power on earth was to keep America 
from deluging the world with cheap talk about "liberty" 
and "humanity." 

It is to the immortal honor of John Randolph, therefore, 
that no great orator ever made less use of clap-trap than he. 
Most orators say what they believe the people wish to 
hear. But "it is an infirmity of my nature," said Ran- 
dolph, "it is constitutional, it was born with me, and has 
caused the misery (if you will) of my life; it is an infir- 
mity of my nature to have an obstinate preference of the 
true over the agreeable." 

When the country was thrilled by the glowing words 
of Webster and Clay in behalf of the Greeks and South 
Americans, John Randolph, though eulogizing Webster 
for his "very able and masterly argument," nevertheless 
refused to gain popularity by endorsing his views. 
"This," said he, "is perhaps one of the finest and pretti- 
est themes for declamation ever presented to a delibera- 
tive assembly. But it appears to me in a light very dif- 
ferent from any that has as yet been thrown upon it. . . 
.... I wish to have some time to think of this business, 
to deliberate, before we take this leap into the dark into the 
Archipelago, or the Black Sea, or into the wide-mouthed 
La Plata. ... It is a difficult and invidious task to stem 
the torrent of public sentiment, when all the generous 
feelings of the human heart are appealed to. But I was 
delegated, sir, to this House, to guard the interests of the 



fo JOHN RANDOLPH. 

people of the United States, not to guard the rights of 
other people; .... This Quixotism, in regard either to 
Greece or to South America, is not what the sober and 
reflecting minds of our people require at our hands. . . Let 
us adhere to the policy laid down by the second as well 
as the first founder of our republic — by him who was the 
Camillus, as well as Romulus of the infant State — to the 
policy of peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all 
nations; entangling alliances with none; for to entang- 
ling alliances we must come, if you once embark in 
policy such as this. And with all my British predilect- 
ions, I suspect I shall, whenever that question shall pre- 
sent itself, resist as strongly an alliance with Great 
Britain, as with any other power." 

Strangely enough, cool wisdom triumphed, for once, 
over fervid folly. The resolutions proposed by Clay and 
Webster were hud upon the table, and there they re- 
mained. This was not the first time, however, that Ran- 
dolph had protested against meddling with other people's 
affairs. Eight years before he had said: "I cannot be 
frightened with the raw head and bloody bones of old 
Spain. I believe that General Andrew Jackson and the 
Tennessee militia would give a good account of all the 
Spaniards who will ever show themselves west of the Per- 
dido, and their red brethren the Creeks, the Choctaws, 

and Seminoles to boot As for South America, 

I am not going a tilting for the liberties of the people of 
Spanish America — they came not to our aid — let us 
mind our own business; let not our people be taxed for 
the liberties of the people of Spanish America 




Andrew Jackson. 



62 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

I do not want any of the territories in that region oy 
conquest, purchase, or voluntary cession. This struggle 
for liberty in South America will turn out in the end 
something like the French liberty, a detestable despotism. 
You cannot make liberty out of Spanish matter — you 
might as well try to build a seventy-four out of pine sap- 
lings. " 

His clear eye penetrated beneath the surface, and saw 
into the essence, of things. He could not be duped by 
the pretence of humanitarianism, and had asked in March, 
1806, whether any man were "so weak, or so wicked, as 
to pretend that there is any principle of action between 

nations except interest? Sir, we are not theo- 

philanthropists, but politicians; not dreamers and sooth- 
sayers, but men of flesh and blood. It is idle to talk of a 
sense of justice in any nation. Each pursues its sense of 
interest, and if you calculate on their acting upon any 
other principle, you may be very amiable, but you will 
prove a cully." 

( )n another subject — Slavery — he well knew the dif- 
ference between genuine humanity and either humbug or 
fanaticism. He knew the difference between an eman- 
cipationist and an abolitionist, between the man who 
voluntarily freed his own slaves and the man who wished 
to free his neighbor's by violence. Following the example 
of his brother Richard, he freed and made provision in 
his will for 300 slaves; but fiercely, and rightly, resented 
the dictation of scheming politicians who used the wrongs, 
real and imaginary, of the dear negro, as stepping stones 
to power. No man denounced the abuses of slavery (such 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 63 

as the auctioning of kidnapped negroes in the District of 
Columbia,) in more scathing language; but he discovered 
from his travels that the laborers in many parts of 
Europe were far more to be pitied than the well-fed ne- 
groes of the South. 

The slave auctions in Washington he called "the most 
nefarious, the most disgraceful, and most infernal traffic 
that has ever stained the annals of the human race." But 
he also said of slavery in general that "it must not be 
tampered with by quacks, who never saw the disease or 
the patient. The disease will run its course — it has run 
its course in the Northern States; it is beginning to run 
its course in Maryland. 

"The natural death of slavery is the unprofitableness 
of its most expensive labor — it is also beginning in the 
meadow and grain country of Virginia — .... The mo- 
ment the labor of the slave ceases to be profitable to the 
master, or very soon after it has reached that stage — if 
the slave will not run away from the master, the master 
will run away from the slave; and this is the history of 
the passage from slavery to freedom of the villenage of 
England." Again he said: "That man has a hard heart, 
or at least a narrow understanding — yes, and a narrow 
heart too, who would justify slavery in the abstract. But 
that man, although he may have a heart as capacious as 
the Atlantic Ocean itself, has a narrow and confined in- 
tellect, who undertakes to make himself and his country 
the judge and the standard for other men and other coun- 
tries. . . . Sir, there has a spirit gone abroad — both in 
England and here — .... it is raging here, and I wish I 



64 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

could say that it does not exist even in Virginia. It is the 
spirit of neglecting our own affairs for the purpose of regu- 
lating the affairs of our neighbors. Sir, this spirit takes 
the plodder — yes, the plodder from the field — to become 
a plodder in the pulpit. It has taken the shoemaker 
from his last — and, what is worse than all, it takes the 
mother from the fireside and from her children, into a 
sort of religious dissipation, in which the Church is made 
as much a Theatre as the Grand Opera at Paris, or as 
Drury Lane or Convent Garden in London." His keen 
observation in Europe showed him that the life of the 
Southern negro was luxury itself compared with the ut- 
ter squalor of the Irish and Russian peasantry; and even 
of England he spoke thus: u There is,at this moment, with- 
in three miles of St. Stephen's Chapel, more misery and 
more vice than exists in the whole of North America, 
the West Indies included. And what is the cure, sir? 
The philanthropists, instead of ferreting out that which 
is immediately under their noses, or rather which they 
are glad to stop their noses to avoid, occupy themselves 
in taking care of the slaves of Mr. Watson Taylor, Mr. 
Beckford, Mr. Hibbert, and other West India gentlemen, 
whose condition, in comparison with the canaille of St. 
Giles's, St. Paul's, Westminster, and other quarters of 
London, is a condition of independence, virtue, happi- 
ness. The misery before their eyes they cannot see — 
their philanthropy acts only at a distance." 

As slavery was recognized in the Constitution, John 
Randolph of course opposed uncompromisingly the cele- 
brated measure — falsely termed a "Compromise" by 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 65 

which, in order to secure the admission of Missouri into 
the Union, the Southern congressmen surrendered the 
constitutional right of Southern men to carry their slaves 
into all that portion of the common territory of the Union 
out of which the States of Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Ne- 
braska, the two Dakotas, Montana, Idaho, etc., have since 
been formed. 

Randolph knew, of course, 
that (as the Supreme Court 
decided thirty-seven years 
afterwards) Congress had no 
more legal right to pass such 
a law than it had to banish 
all slaveholders to the moon. 
He knew, too, that the ex- 
clusion of slavery from this 
region amounted, practically, 
to the exclusion of their white 
owners, who would be com- 
pelled, if they moved there, either to free their negroes 
before they went or to sell them at a probable sacrifice. 
Randolph's chief speeches on this subject were not re- 
ported, but he opposed vehemently all conditions what- 
ever to the act admitting Missouri. 

It is well known that, when the presidential election 
of 1824 was thrown into the House, and Clay, failing to 
be elected himself, threw his influence to John Quincy 
Adams, and was appointed Secretary of State by the lat- 
ter, it was charged that this appointment was due to a 
corrupt bargain between the two men. The justice of 




John Quincy Adams. 



66 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

the charge need not be discussed here; but Randolph was 
firmly convinced of its truth. His dislike of Clay as the 
leading advocate of paternalism and loose construction 
of the Constitution was very strong; and the personality 
of Adams inspired him with an even greater antipathy — 
"the cub is a greater bear than the old one" — than he 
had felt for his father. 

In the Senate, March 30, 1826, Randolph speaks of 
"an alliance offensive and defensive between old Massa- 
chusetts and Kentucky — between the frost of January, 
and young, blythe, buxom, and blooming May. . . . not 
so young, however, as not to make a prudent match, and 
sell her charms for their full value." Then, mentioning 
that both Chatham and Junius had compared the union 
between the profligate Lord Sandwich and the sancti- 
monious Lord Mansfield to that between Blifil and Black 
George, he says: "I shall not say which is Blifil and 
which is Black George. I do not draw my pictures in 
such a way as to render it necessary to write under them, 
'this is a man, this is a horse.' " 

His meaning was certainly plain that Adams, "the Puri- 
tan" was Blifil, and Clay, "the blackleg," Black George. 
Moreover, it was in this speech that he said: "there is 
strong reason to believe that these South American com- 
munications, which have been laid before us, were manu- 
factured here at Washington, if not by the pens, under 
the eye of our own Ministers, to subserve their purposes." 

On account of these insulting remarks, Clay called 
him to the field. Randolph was one of the best shots in 
Virginia; but, having no desire to take Clay's life, he 



JOHN RANDOLPH, 67 

said to General Hamilton of South Carolina the night 
before the duel: "Hamilton, I have determined to re- 
ceive, without returning, Clay's fire; nothing shall in- 
duce me to harm a hair of his head; I will not make his 
wife a widow, or his children orphans. Their tears 
would be shed over his grave; but when the sod of Vir- 
ginia rests on my bosom, there is not in this wide world 
one individual to pay this tribute upon mine." 

He was as good as his word. For, when the meeting 
took place, Randolph deliberately fired in the air, where- 
upon Clay exclaimed: 

"I trust in God, my dear sir, you are untouched; after 
what has occurred, I would not have harmed you for a 
thousand worlds." 

To break down the administration of Adams was an 
aim persistently adhered to by Randolph; and one of his 
opponents, an Ohioan, declared his deliberate opinion 
that Randolph had done more to break Adams down than 
any three men in the country. Strongly advocating the 
election of Andrew Jackson, and having seen his object 
accomplished, Randolph declined re-election to Congress 
and retired to private life. He supposed his political ca- 
reer ended. 

But, in spite of his having declared on Feb. 1, 1828, 
that he desired no office either at home or "at the tail of 
the corps diplomatique in Europe," he was so strongly 
urged by Jackson to undertake a mission to Russia on 
special diplomatic business that he accepted the offer and 
went in 1830 — having meantime most reluctantly, but 
ably, taken part in the debates of the Virginia Constitu- 



68 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

tional Convention of 1829-30. He had intended going 
to England for his health, but had declined the missions 
to both France and England as too laborious. 

The special mission to Russia, however, was accepted 
as not requiring him to stay continuously at his post; 
and it so happened that, when he reached St. Petersburg, 
there had just been a change in the Russian ministry, 
the cholera was raging through Europe, and a no less con- 
tagious revolution in France, Belgium, Germany, Italy 
and Poland. Under these circumstances it was impossi- 
ble — although he was presented to the Czar and Czarina 
— for the Russian Government to give attention to Ran- 
dolph's business; and, as the Russian climate proved 
very disastrous to him, he went to London in a short 
time, leaving his secretary of legation behind him with 
instructions to inform him promptly when the Russian 
ministry were ready to confer with him. 

But the Polish insurrection so occupied the latter that, 
although he was in constant communication with St. 
Petersburg, ready to go there at a moment's notice, they 
were never able to give him the necessary time for his 
business. Hence, as his health grew ever worse, con- 
sumption having secured a firm hold upon him, he re- 
signed his place and returned home in the fall of 1831. 
His failure to accomplish much by his mission was sure- 
ly no fault of his. Had he accepted the position merely 
for pecuniary reasons, he would not have resigned it when 
he did; and we may dismiss the bitter attack upon him 
by Henry Adams with the remark that the latter is a 
grandson of John Ouincy Adams, and resents the promi- 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 69 

nent part which Randolph took in thwarting his grand- 
father's efforts to secure a second presidential term. 

Upon his return from Russia, Randolph's health be- 
came so deplorable that he probably came nearer dying 
in the spring of 1832 than ever before. He rallied, how- 
ever, and the vital forces lasted one year more. He had 
been a beautiful boy,and exceedingly handsome as a young 
man. But disease prematurely covered his face with innum- 
erable wrinkles, and reduced his body in old age to the 
utmost extreme of attenuation; and in this last year he 
was kept alive by little save the force of an indomitable 
will. Indeed, but for the wondrous brilliancy of the 
eyes that still blazed from their sockets in the parchment- 
covered skull, he would have closely resembled an emac- 
iated corpse. 

Yet the spirit that inhabited this feeble frame was un- 
conquerable still; and when he heard of the proclamation 
in which Jackson denounced the nullification ordinance 
of South Carolina, and threatened to invade that State 
with a military force, all the fiery energy of his soul was 
aroused, and he girded up his loins for a last battle for 
State Rights. 

Randolph loved the Union. In the debate on Burr's 
conspiracy he had said that the very mention of disunion 
was a great public injury, and ought to be held in abhor- 
rence by every true patriot. No wiser or more patriotic 
letter was ever written than that in which, on the day 
when the Hartford Convention met, he appealed (through 
a senator) to the New England States not to exercise 
their right of secession. 



70 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

Yet, even in this letter, he admits that the Union was 
only a means of liberty and safety, and not an end to 
which these blessings were to be sacrificed. He loved 
the Union — the Constitutional Union of Sovereign States 
under a government based upon the consent of the gov- 
erned — not an unconstitutional Union of a tyrant section 
and subject provinces pinned together by bayonets. No 
wonder, then, that, when South Carolina, hot with wrath 
at the successive tariff acts, each worse than its prede- 
cessor, by which she had been plundered, turned fiercely 
upon her oppressors, and declared the latest of these acts 
null and void, and when the imperious Jackson prepared 
to crush her by force and hang her leaders to the nearest 
tree, Randolph sprang once more into the lists. 

Sick, suffering and dying though he was, he had him- 
self lifted into the carriage and driven from county to 
county in his district. No longer strong enough to stand, 
he nevertheless spoke to multitudes from his seat and 
held them with his glittering eye and thrilling voice. 

Thirty-four years before, in the bloom of young man- 
hood, he had dared to face Henry in defense of the States; 
and now, tottering on the brink of the grave, he hurled 
down i he gauntlet to Jackson in the same cause. 

Nor did he appeal to his constituents in vain. For 
throughout his district they passed resolutions condemn- 
ing Jackson's proclamation. His sagacious insight into 
character, as well as the readiness with which he recog- 
nized the greater qualities of his opponents, are seen in a 
few words spoken at Buckingham Court House. Declar- 
ing himself to be "filled with the most gloomy apprehen- 




Henry Clay. 



72 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

sions for the fate of the Union," he said: "If Madi- 
son filled the Executive chair, he might be bullied 
into some compromise. If Monroe was in power, he 
might be coaxed into some adjustment of this difficul- 
ty. But Jackson is obstinate, headstrong, and fond of 
fight. I fear matters must come to an open rupture. If 
so, this Union is gone !" 

Then, after a long and impressive pause, he raised his 
finger and said: "There is one man, and one man only, 
who can save this Union — that man is HENRY CLAY. 
I know he has the power, I believe he will be found to 
have the patriotism and firmness equal to the occasion." 

Once more he was elected to Congress, but was never 
to take his seat. Hoping against hope that a sea voyage 
and the English climate would somewhat restore his shat- 
tered strength, he reached Philadelphia, but could go no 
further. In the city that had witnessed some of the jolli- 
est days of his youth, as well as his entrance upon the 
congressional stage, he was now stricken down and 
breathed his last on June 24, 1833. 

And now we have reached the most difficult part of 
our task, the delineation of the character of this extraor- 
dinary man. Few men have had bitterer enemies or 
more devoted friends; and the judgments passed upon 
him have therefore been radically different. The present 
writer cannot hope to do more than approximate the 
truth; but he will at least endeavor to avoid extravagant 
eulogy on the one hand and rabid hostility on the other. 

The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde does not tell the 
whole truth. For every man contains within himself 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 73 

not simply two, but a thousand different natures. Each 
man is the descendant of countless ancestors, from each 
of whom he inherits traits physical, mental or moral, 
which may or may not reach full development according 
to circumstances. Seeds cast by the wayside may be de- 
voured by the fowls of the air, while those sown in fer- 
tile soil may bring forth an hundred fold. 

Had Shakespeare been kidnapped in infancy by a 
Choctaw chief, he might have lived to take many scalps, 
but would surely have never written Ha7nlet. Before 
the French Revolution Robespierre w r as so opposed to 
capital punishment that he conscientiously resigned his 
seat on the bench, rather than condemn a murderer to 
death. But the writings of Rousseau and the frenzy of 
the Revolution transformed this gentle lamb into a tiger 
thirsting for blood. 

But for the Revolution, Charlotte Corday, instead of 
plunging a dagger into the heart of Marat, might have 
lived to sew buttons on the garments of a dozen children. 

"In my opinion," said Randolph, "the wisest prayer 
that ever was composed is that which deprecates the be- 
ing led into temptation." Let not the man, then, who 
has never been tempted, sanctimoniously prate of his 
superior virtue. For there has probably never lived a 
man who," at birth, was not potentially a murderer and 
a thief. In a cool, dry place gunpowder might lie for 
ages, harmless as the cooing of a dove. Drop but a 
spark, however, among the innocent-looking grains, and 
the roar of a lion is as silence compared with the horrid 
sound that splits the ear. 



74 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

Iii these considerations are to be found the key 
to much that seems unaccountable in John Randolph's 
career. His was a highly complex character; the most 
varied and antagonistic traits existing side by side in his 
nature, and not merely potentially, as in all men, but 
actually. In Whittier's words, he was: 

"Bard, sage, and tribune! in himself 

All moods of mind contrasting — 
The tenderest wail of human woe, 

The scorn like lightning blasting: 
The pathos that from rival eyes 

Unwilling tears could summon: 
The stinging taunt, the fiery burst 

Of hatred hardly human. 
Mirth sparkling like a diamond shower 

From lips of lifelong sadness; 
Clear picturings of majestic thought 

Upon a ground of madness." 

Some of these traits might have lain dormant, but for 
unfortunate circumstances. Chief among these, chief 
among the influences that developed Randolph's evil pro- 
pensities, was inveterate, chronic bad health. "I have 
been sick all my life," he said shortly before his death; 
and Nathaniel Macon told Thomas H. Benton that Ran- 
dolph had never in his life enjoyed one day of perfect 
health. 

It is comparatively easy for a robust man to be cheer- 
ful. But let not such a man estimate too lightly the in- 
fluence of a complication of painful and chronic mala- 
dies in souring and embittering the temper. 

It is, of course, perfectly true that there have been 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 75 

sweet-tempered men and women who have borne 
life-long suffering and pain with scarcely a murmur. 
Nor is it pretended that John Randolph did not have 
a bad temper to begin with. He fully admitted it him- 
self, saying that 
his "ungovernable 
temper" had been 
the chief cause of 
his unhappiness. 
But undoubtedly 
his irritability was 
increased by con- 
stant physical 
pain. No in a 11 
confessed with 
deeper contrition, 
to his intimate 
friends, the faults 
into which this 
temper betrayed 
him; and on his 
death-bed he deliriously cried out: "Remorse, remorse, 
remorse!" and, making his physician write the word on 
a card, looked at it and exclaimed: 

"Remorse, you have no idea what it is; you can form 
no idea of it, whatever; it has contributed to bring me to 
my present situation — but I have looked to the Lord Je- 
sus Christ, and hope I have obtained pardon." 

Having by nature a profoundly religious spirit, and a 
sense of sin like that of Luther, who in his lonely cell 




Thomas H. Benton. 



76 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

often cried aloud "my sin, my sin!" Randolph habitu- 
ally reproached himself, in letters to his bosom friends, 
with his shortcomings, and sank at times into despair at 
his failure to live up to the Christian standard. Writing 
to Francis S. Key on May 31, 181 5, he said: "I have had 
a strong desire to go to the Lord's Supper; but I was de- 
terred by a sense of my unworthiness; and, only yester- 
day, reading the denunciation against those who received 
unworthily, I thought it would never be in my power to 

present myself at the altar I feel a comfort 

in repeating the Liturgy that I would not be deprived 
of for worlds. " 

To Dr. Brockenbrough, a month later, he speaks of his 
"stubborn and rebellious nature," and declares it essential 
that he should "strive against envy, malice, and all un- 
charitableness" and cultivate "feelings of good will to all 
mankind." A year later he writes to Key in this wise: 

"My mind is filled with misgivings and doubts and per- 
plexities that leave me no repose. Of the necessity for 
forgiveness I have the strongest conviction; but I cannot 
receive any assurance that it has been accorded to me. 
In short I am in the worst conceivable situation as re- 
spects my internal peace and future w r elfare I 

have humbly sought comfort where alone it is effectually 
to be obtained, but without success. To you and Mr. 
Meade [afterwards Bishop Meade of Virginia] I can ven- 
ture to write in this style, without disguising the secret 
workings of my heart." 

And a few months later: "My opinions seem daily to 
become more unsettled, and the awful mystery which 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 77 

shrouds the future alone renders the present tolerable. 
The darkness of my hours, so far from having passed 
away has thickened into the deepest gloom." 

There can be little doubt, indeed, that had Randolph 
lived in the six- 
teenth century, 
he would have 
been a religious 
reformer; and, 
paradoxical as it 
may seem to 
those who know 
only the legend- 
ary, and not the 
real Randolph, 
there was a cer- 
t a i n r e s e m- 
blance. in some 
respects, be- 
tween him and 
John Calvin. 
AsRandolph ad- 
mitted his u un- John Calvin, 
governable temper," so Calvin confessed that he yielded 
too often to the "wild beast of his anger." Neither of 
them could well brook opposition; both were domineer- 
ing; and both were masters of vituperation. 

There was a certain acerbity and censoriousness in each 
(even Calvin's school-mates dubbing him the "Accusa- 
tion Case,") and in each these faults were aggravated by 




78 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

bad health. They boch inspired deepest love and bit- 
terest hate. Each may have been at times intellectually 
inconsistent, but both were morally honest to the core. 
Both were precocious; Calvin's theological system, like 
Randolph's political principles, being adopted early in 
life; and both sternly and rigidly refused to sacrifice one 
iota of their principles to mere expediency. 

In the sixteenth century Randolph might have found- 
ed a sect. In the nineteenth, Calvin might have relent- 
lessly scourged the venal tricksters and time-serving 
spoilsmen of Congress. 

For a time in the year 1818, Randolph's religious de- 
spair was dispelled. "Congratulate me, dear Frank" he 
writes to the author of the "Star-Spangled Banner"— "I am 
at last reconciled to my God, and have assurance of His 
pardon, through faith in Christ, against which the very 
gates of hell cannot prevail. Fear hath been driven out 
by perfect love." 

But he could not long rest content, and writes eight 
months later: "My dear Frank, what is there in this 
world to satisfy the cravings of an immortal nature? I 
declare to you that the business and pleasures of it seem 
to me as of no more consequence than the game of push- 
pin that occupies the little negroes at the corner of the 
street. 

"Do not misunderstand me, my dear friend. My life 
(I am ashamed to confess it) does not correspond with 
my belief. I have made a vile return for the goodness 
which has been manifested toward me — but I still cling 
to the cross of my Redeemer." 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 79 

And in another letter he says: "I am more than sati- 
ated with the world. It is to me a fearful prison-house of 

guilt and misery My own short-comings are the 

sources of my regrets, 'and why call ye me Lord, Lord, 
and do not the things that I say.' This, my dear friend, 
troubles me by day and by night. 'Tis not what others 
do, but what I do, or omit, that annoys me.' 1 

We see, then, that Randolph, though deeply religious, 
was no sanctimonious hypocrite. No man, indeed, ever 
loathed canting hypocrisy more. Rarely did he speak of 
his religious feelings except to his closest friends, and to 
them he confessed his faults. The following anecdote 
well illustrates the clearness of his conceptions and his 
fine discrimination between cant and genuine piety. 

One of the Bryan boys, his wards, having been taken 
to task by his brother for not resenting an insult, and the 
matter having been referred to Mr. Randolph: "My boy," 
said he, "if you were absolutely certain of being actuated 
solely by the love of Christ, you were right to turn the 
other cheek to your insulter. If not, you should have hit 
him with all your might, remembering never to mistake 
the fear of man for the love of God." 

In this, at least, he practiced what he preached. Cow- 
ardice, moral or physical, was a sensation of which he 
knew naught. He faced Clay's bullet, and fired his own 
into the air; and, when advised in 1813 not to speak in 
Buckingham Co. against the war with England, for fear 
of violence, he replied: "You know very little of me, or 
you would not give such advice." 

Then facing the angry crowd, he said: 



80 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

"I understand that I am to be insulted today if I at- 
tempt to address the people — that a mob is prepared to 
lay their rude hands upon me and drag me from these 
hustings, for daring to exercise the rights of a freeman." 

And then, tranfixing the ring-leaders with his pierc- 
ing gaze, and pointing toward them with that long, 
lean, lank forefinger of his, he continued: 

"My Bible teaches me that the fear of God is the be- 
ginning of wisdom, but that the fear of man is the con- 
summation of folly." 

As by magic, the incipient riot was quelled — his 
dauntless courage compelling attention to his words. 

Another striking trait was his colossal pride; while of 
vanity he had little or none. Little he cared what the 
world might think of him, so long as he maintained his 
self-respect. So proud was he, indeed, that he refused to 
let the world see him as he really was; and much of his 
supposed cynicism and misanthropy was due to this aver- 
sion to baring the deeper feelings of his heart to the pub- 
lic gaze. 

Were he living in our time, he would probably cane 
the first "enterprising" reporter that attempted to "inter- 
view" him on his private affairs. Intensely reserved, he 
hotly resented any attempt at undue familiarity on the 
part of strangers or mere acquaintances. His house was 
his castle, and the obtrusive person who hinted for an 
invitation to it reckoned without the host. 

"Mr. Randolph," said a neighbor who met him one 
day, "I passed by your front door this morning." 

"I hope you will always continue to pass it, sir," was 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 8l 

the somewhat savage reply. That he made enemies by 
this species of repartee goes without saying; and it is not 
strange that some of his neighbors and their descend- 
ants could and can see little good in him. Nor is it 
surprising that some of those whom he offended did not 
confine themselves to the truth, and that consequently a 
goodly crop of legends has sprung up among the people 
of Charlotte Co. at their monthly gatherings on the 
court green, or by the fireside in the long winter evenings. 
Much of this gossip has gotten into print. But neither 
this nor the stories that arose in Washington can be ac- 
cepted as authentic. 

His real wit was keen enough, and we need not repeat 
the fictitious. Senator Benton, who lived in the house 
with him for several years, says that his sarcasm was 
"keen, refined, withering;" and the present writer, after 
spending five weeks in the Library of Congress reading 
his speeches and taking extracts therefrom, can fully en- 
dorse this view. Occasionally, in the heat of debate, and 
under the influence of intense excitement, his wit was al- 
most ferocious ; but such was not often the case. No one, 
of course, who merely reads his words, without having 
heard the penetrating tones and seen the flashing eye, the 
haughty mien, and the long arm and forefinger stretched 
scornfully toward his victim, can realize the feelings of 
the latter. 

"Agony and fear," says Benton, were the sensations 
which he aroused in Congress. To many a member that 
lean forefinger seemed as deadly as the tongue of a viper 
exuding- venom. But it should be remembered that Ran- 



82 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

dolph's sarcasm was not the only cause for these feelings. 
In Randolph's opinion "the seven cardinal principles of 
the average politician were the five loaves and the two 
fishes;" and in many cases it was the guilty conscience of 
the corrupt spoilsman that made him wince beneath the 
withering wit of a rabidly honest man. Samples of this 
sarcasm have already been given in the citations from his 
speeches — as, for example, the contemptuous manner in 
which he spoke of Gregg's views of English and Ameri- 
can sea-power. 

Upon another occasion he made a savage attack upon 
Sheffey of Virginia, taunting him with his former occu- 
pation by citing the Latin saw tie sutor ultra crepidam. 
He once referred to Bayard of Delaware as the"Goliah of 
the adverse party" and a "gigantic boaster." In i8i5he 
exasperated Philip P. Barbour of Virginia (who had crit- 
icised him) by citing the lines, 

"The little dogs and all, 
Tray, Blanche and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me." 

Yet fifteen years afterward it was he who moved a res- 
olution of thanks to Mr. Barbour for the "impartiality 
and dignity," as well as "distinguished ability," with 
which he had presided over the Virginia Convention. He 
also said that "notwithstanding any occasional heat ex- 
cited by the collision of debate," he parted from every 
member of the Convention' ' with the most hearty good 
will." 

And, indeed, it is not true that Randolph was an 
implacable man. After his breach with Jefferson he 
paid more than one eloquent tribute to that statesman. 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 83 

Even Madison he eulogized in some respects; and 
shortly before his death he clasped the hand of Clay, 
whom he had generously declared to be the one man who 
could save the Union. He was not, then, implacable; 
and his vindictive attacks upon opponents were due large- 
ly to temper intensified by physical suffering. His feel- 
ings were strong and intense, and he possessed but a 
small share of what he once termed "that rascally virtue, 
prudence." 

"I am willing to allow," he said, "that in the heat of 
debate, expressions improper for me to use, but not im- 
proper in their application to those to whom they re- 
ferred, may have escaped me — the verba ardentia of an 
honest mind. I scorn to retract them. They were made 
in the presence of the nation, and in their presence I will 
defend them. I will never snivel, whatever may be the 
result/' 

Certainly some of his thrusts were uncalled for. For 
example, when Goddard of Connecticut had alluded to 
his great learning, Randolph lamented his "inability to 
return the compliment but at an expense of sincerity and 
truth, which even the gentleman from Connecticut, he 
hoped, would be unwilling to require." And to John 
Smilie he once said: "And let me tell the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania that I would rather have his vote than 
his speech at any time. Who would suppose, had he not 
averred it, that he held silence and good sense in such 
high respect, that he preferred the calm decisions of quiet 
wisdom to the effusions of empty garrulity?" 

Space will only permit of one more sample of his con- 



84 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

temptuous treatment of opponents. Beecher of Ohio 
having annoyed him by repeated calls for the previous 
question, he convulsed the House and suppressed Beech- 
er by saying: 

"Air. Speaker, in the Netherlands a man of small ca- 
pacity, with bits of wood and leather, will in a few mo- 
ments construct a toy that, with the pressure of the fin- 
ger and the thumb, will cry 'Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! ' With 
less of ingenuity,and inferior materials, the people of Ohio 
have made a toy that will, without much pressure, cry, 
'Previous question, Mr. Speaker! Previous question, Mr. 
Speaker !' " 

And yet — such is the complexity of human nature, so 
manifold the passions that can coexist in a single breast 
— this man who shot so many poisoned darts into the 
bosoms of his foes, and whose pride made him conceal 
the softer side of his nature from all but a favored few, 
was also a man who was not only capable of feeling, but 
did feel, the tenderest and deepest love. His ardent affect- 
ion for his mother and brother has already been men- 
tioned. His family pride and his family affections were 
exceedingly strong. No father could have loved his 
children more dearly than he loved his two nephews, the 
sons of his brother Richard; and the heart-rending grief 
which he experienced at the early death of one and the 
insanity of the other was one of the fatal influences that 
embittered his life and plunged him into hypochondria 
and gloom. He also felt the tenderest love for the chil- 
dren of his sister who married Judge Coalter, and partic- 
ularly for her daughter Elizabeth, who married John 



JOHN" RANDOLPH. 85 

Randolph Bryan, the son of his friend, Joseph Bryan. 
So dear to him was the memory of this friend that he 
cared for his two orphaned sons in the way described by 
one of them in 1878 as follows: 

"In 18 16, Mr. Randolph took it upon himself to direct 
the education of three very young orphan boys, the oldest 
of whom was barely ten years of age. Two of these boys 
(J. R. Clay, Esq., and the writer) are yet living. They 
were sent to school, but passed their vacations of about 
two months of the year at Mr. Randolph's house, where 
they were treated as his children — some one of them often 
sleeping in the same bed with him, and when away re- 
ceiving letters from him frequently. He took an inter- 
est in their manners, language, and reading, made them 
say their prayers, and often read to them. This super- 
vision and care of my brother and myself continued four 
years, when, in 1820, we returned to our home in Geor- 
gia. After our separation he wrote constantly to me 
while I was at school and at college In his in- 
tercourse with us boys the sweetness of his manner and 
considerateness to our blunders and awkwardness were 
truly paternal." 

Another boy whom he educated, and who lived with 
him for years at Roanoke was Theodore Bland Dudley, 
his cousin. In his frequent letters to these boys he shows 
an almost motherly interest in the smallest details affect- 
ing them — telling them, for example, to be sure to clean 
their teeth, and the like. Surely here was a side of his 
nature invisible to the public. And the same must be 
said of the passionate craving for affection, displayed in 



86 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

his letters to such friends as Dr.Brockenbrough and Fran- 
cis S. Key. His close attachment to Nathaniel Macon 
is historic, and their names are indissolubly linked in 
the title of Randolph-Macon College. His unostenta- 
tious charity is attested by Senator Benton who says he 
often saw him send little children out to give to the poor. 

These are authentic facts, not myths, and show that 
the man who could unquestionably display the most ran- 
corous malignity, also had a warm, loving heart. *Uit 
over the deepest passion of that heart hangs a mystery 
impenetrated by his biographers. He loved Maria Ward 
with all the fervor of his nature — "more than his own 
soul, or the God that made it 1 ' — and he loved no other 
woman but her. But why they were not married cannot 
be said. Even her marriage to another did not banish 
her memory from his heart; and years after they parted 
he was heard to breathe her name in fever-dreams. To 
the lonely anchorite of Roanoke her idealized image re- 
mained a guiding star, beckoning him to higher things. 

Was Randolph a drunkard ? Was he an opium-eater? 
Was he insane ? 

A careful examination of two volumes of Mss. contain- 
ing the evidence in the law-suits growing out of the con- 
test over his will justifies the following conclusions. 

In spite of the indignant denial of his godson, John 
Randolph Bryan, that he never drank to excess, and of 
Benton's statement that he never saw him affected by 
wine, "even to the slightest departure from the habitual 
and scrupulous decorum of his manners," it is unques- 
tionable that, though nearly always temperate, and some- 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 87 

times a total abstainer, he did occasionally drink to very 
great excess. 

It is also undeniable that during the last years of his 
life he frequently resorted to opium. There is ample 
testimony on both these points. But, even if all testi- 
mony were destroyed but his own, that would be suffi- 
cient. He alluded in some of his letters to his potations, 
and made no secret of his use of opium — saying a few 
months before his death to the Hon. John Taliaferro: 
"I am the veriest sot on earth, and that from necessity, 
for I never am free from pain except by an excessive use 
of brandy and opium." 

That at certain periods of his life he was insane is also 
perfectly clear; and the study of his case reveals some 
strangely interesting psychological facts. The worst of 
these periods was from Nov., 1831 to April, 1832; and, 
curiously enough, there can be no doubt that, while he 
was probably never wholly sane during any entire day in 
that period, yet there were few days during which he did 
not have lucid hours. At one hour he might manage 
his business affairs in a perfectly clear-headed way, or 
write absolutely rational letters; and at another hour he 
might be as mad as a March hare. That opium had 
something to do with this is highly probable. And yet 
it is clear, when we look at his whole life, that his occa- 
sional insanity was not caused by either opium or drink. 
But of course their excessive use aggravated the insanity. 

Religious mania more than once afflicted him; and just 
as Luther threw his inkstand at the devil and, indeed, 
very frequently encountered that formidable personage, 



88 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

so Randolph had to do battle with him more than once. 
To a Mr. Holliday he wrote a letter stating a wish to 
buy two of the latter' s horses, for the reason that he had 
signed a contract with no less a person than His Satanic 
Majesty himself, not to drink the asses' milk essential to 
the preservation of his life until he had bought those two 
horses. This letter he entrusted to his friend, Judge 
William Leigh, to mail; but, when the latter had ridden 
a mile or two, one of Randolph's servants caught up with 
him and said his master wanted the letter back, as a 
charm was upon it. Later on, the negro again galloped 
up with the letter, saying that his master now declared 
the charm to be removed. 

During this same period he told a Mr. Klournoy that 
he had had a ''controversy with his God," who would 
not forgive him for misusing his talents, wealth and in- 
fluence, and for being such a reprobate. For two nights 
and a day he slept not a wink, as Flournoy testifies. In 
April he told Mr. John Nelson he had had a personal in- 
terview with the Saviour of the world, who told him his 
sins were forgiven. The next day he resolved to test 
the reality of the vision by praying that a certain tree 
should be moved to another part of the yard; but was 
interrupted before he could thus test the power of prayer. 
He once told Judge Leigh that in the next room there 
was a man writing a dead man's will with a dead man's 
hand. 

But enough. Pie told Senator Benton that he had al- 
ways lived in dread of insanity, and Benton was con- 
vinced that he was insane on several occasions, "and dur- 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 89 

ing such periods he would do and say strange things — 
but always in his own way — not only method, but gen- 
ius in his fantasies: nothing to bespeak a bad heart, but 
only exaltation and excitement. The most brilliant talk 
that I ever heard from him came forth on such occasions 
— a flow for hours (at one time seven hours) of copious 
wit and classic allusion — a perfect scattering of the dia- 
monds of the mind. I heard a friend remark on one of 
these occasions, 'he has wasted intellectual jewelry enough 
here this evening to equip many speakers for great ora- 
tions.'" 

John Randolph was a strange, sad, wonderful man. 
He had his faults, and they were grave. But those who 
reflect upon the incessant pain which he suffered, the ag- 
ony of soul which a perpetual dread of insanity must 
have caused him, the death of those nearest and dearest 
to him, his disappointment in love, and the dreary loneli- 
ness of his life at Roanoke, will not be disposed to cast 
the first stone at the most tragic character in American 
history. 

For forty-six years his body rested in the solitude of 
Roanoke, but in 1879 was removed to Richmond by his 
great-nephew, Joseph Bryan, Esq., the present editor of 
the Richmond "Times." The State Legislature ad- 
journed to attend the ceremony of re-interment, and they 
did well. For, with all his faults, Virginia has had few 
greater or more devoted sons. 

The soil of his old home seemed loath to relinquish 
the blackened bones. For the roots of a pine and an oak 
had penetrated the coffin and so entwined the skeleton — 



90 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

the very skull, in which once the fiery brain had 
throbbed, being completely filled with a dense mass of 
rootlets — that they had to be severed with an axe before 
Mother Earth could be compelled to relax her embrace 
upon the remains. But she received them again, and 
in Hollywood Cemetery they now repose. 




Interior Old House of Representatives, the Scene of Randolph's Triumphs. 



JOHN RANDOLPH ON FOREIGN IM- 
PORTATIONS. 

(Delivered March 5, lS06,on a Motion for the non-importation of British merchan- 
dise, offered by Mr. Gregg in the House of Representatives during the dispute be- 
tween Great Britain and the United States.) 

I am extremely afraid, sir, that so far as it may depend on 
my acquaintance with details connected with the subject I 
have very little right to address you : for in truth I have not 
yet seen the documents from the treasury, which were called 
for some time ago, to direct the judgment of this House in 
the decision of the question now before you ; and indeed, 
after what I have this day heard, I no longer require that 
document, or any other document ; indeed, I do not know 
that I ever should have required it, to vote on the resolution 
of the gentleman from Pennsylvania. If I had entertained 
any doubts, they would have been removed by the style in 
which the friends of the resolution have this morning dis- 
cussed it. 

I am perfectly aware that upon entering on this subject 
we go into it manacled, handcuffed, and tongue-tied. Gentle- 
men know that our lips are sealed in subjects of momentous 
foreign relations which are indissolubly linked with the pres- 
ent question, and which would serve to throw a great light on 
it in every respect relevant to it. I will, however, endeavor 
to hobble over the subject as well as my fettered limbs and 
palsied tongue will enable me to do it. 

I am not surprised to hear this resolution discussed by its 
friends as a war measure. They sav, it is true, that it is 



9 2 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

not a war measure ; but they defend it on principles which 
would justify none but war measures, and seem pleased with 
the idea that it may prove the forerunner of war. If war 
is necessary, if we have reached this point, let us have war. 

But while I have life I will never consent to these incipient 
war measures which in their commencement breathe nothing 
but peace, though they plunge us at last into war. 

It has been well observed by the gentleman from Pennsyl- 
vania behind me [Mr. J. Clay], that the situation of this 
nation in 1793 was in every respect different from that in 
which it finds itself in 1806. Let me ask too, if the situation 
of England is not since materially changed? Gentlemen, 
who, it would appear from their language, have not got be- 
yond the horn-book of politics, talk of our ability to cope 
with the British navv and tell us of the war of our Revo- 
lution. 

What was the situation of Great Britain then? She was 
then contending for the empire of the British Channel, bare- 
lv able to maintain a doubtful equality with her enemies, over 
whom she never gained the superiority until Rodney's vic- 
tory of the 12th of April. 

What is her present situation ? The combined fleets of 
France, Spain, and Holland are dissipated; they no longer 
exist. I am not surprised to hear men advocate these wild 
opinions, to see them goaded on by a spirit of mercantile 
avarice, straining their feeble strength to excite the nation 
to war, when they have reached this stage of infatuation, 
that we are an over-match for Great Britain on the ocean. 
It is mere waste of time to reason with such persons. They 
do not deserve anything like serious refutation. The proper 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 93 

arguments for such statesmen are a strait waistcoat, a dark 
room, water-gruel, and depletion. 

It has always appeared to me that there are three points 
to be considered, and maturely considered, before we can be 
prepared to vote for the resolution of the gentlemen from 
Pennsylvania. First, our ability to contend with Great Brit- 
ain for the question in dispute ; second, the policy of such 
a contest; and third, in case both these shall be settled af- 
firmatively, the manner in which we can with the greatest 
effect react upon and annoy our adversary. 

Now the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Crownin- 
shield] has settled at a single sweep, to use one of his fav- 
orite expressions, not only that we are capable of contending 
with Great Britain on the ocean, but that we are actually her 
superior. Whence does the gentleman deduce this infer- 
ence? Because truly at that time when Great Britain was 
not mistress of the ocean, when a North was her prime min- 
ister and a Sandwich the first lord of her admiralty ; when 
she was governed by a counting-house administration, priva- 
teers of this counttry trespassed on her commerce. So too 
did the cruisers of Dunkirk. At that day Sufferin held the 
mastery of the Indian seas. 

But what is the case now ? Do gentlemen remember the 
capture of Cornwallis on land because De Grasse maintained 
the dominion of the ocean ? To my mind no position is more 
clear than that if we go to war with Great Britain, Charles- 
ton and Boston, the Chesapeake and the Hudson, will be in- 
vested by British squadrons. Will you call on the Count de 
Grasse to relieve them? or shall we apply to Admiral Gra- 
vina, or Admiral Villeneuve, to raise the blockade? 



94 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

But you have not only a prospect of gathering glory, and, 
what seems to the gentleman from Massachusetts much 
dearer, to profit by privateering, but you will be able to make 
a conquest of Canada and Nova Scotia. Indeed ? Then, sir, 
we shall catch a Tartar. I confess, however, I have no de- 
sire to see the senators and the representatives of the Cana- 
dian French, or of the Tories and refugees of Nova Scotia, 
sitting on this floor, or that of the other House — to see them 
becoming members of the Union and participating equally 
in our political rights. And on what other principle would 
the gentleman from Massachusetts be for incorporating 
those provinces with us? Or on what other principle could 
it be done under the constitution? If the gentleman has 
no other bounty to offer us for going to war than the incor- 
poration of Canada and Nova Scotia with the United States, 
I am for remaining at peace. 

What is the question in dispute? The carrying trade. 
What part of it? The fair, the honest, and the useful trade 
that is engaged in carrying our own production to foreign 
markets and bringing back their productions in exchange? 
No, sir ; it is that carrying trade which covers enemy's prop- 
erty and carries the coffee, the sugar, and other West India 
products to the mother countrty. 

No, sir; if this great agricultural nation is to be governed 
by Salem and Boston, New York and Philadelphia, and Bal- 
timore and Norfolk and Charleston, let gentlemen come out 
and say so ; and let a committee of public safety be appointed 
from those towns to carry on the government. 

I, for one, will not mortgage my property and my liberty 
to carry on this trade. The nation said so seven years ago; 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 95 

I said so then, and I say so now. It is not for the honest 
carrying trade of America, but for this mushroom, this 
fungus of war, for a trade which, as soon as the nations of 
Europe are at peace, will no longer exist ; it is for this that 
the spirit of avaricious traffic would plunge us into war. 

I am forcibly struck on this occasion by the recollection of 
a remark made by one of the ablest, if not the honestest, 
ministers that England ever produced. I mean Sir Robert 
Walpole, who said that the country gentlemen, poor, meek 
souls ! came up every year to be sheared ; that they laid mute 
and patient whilst their fleeces were taking off; but that if 
he touched a single bristle of the commercial interest, the 
whole stye was in an uproar. It was indeed shearing the 
hog — "great cry and little wool." 

But we are asked, are we willing to bend the neck to Eng- 
land ; to submit to her outrages? No, sir; I answer that it 
will be time enough for us to tell gentlemen what we will do 
to vindicate the violation of our flag on the ocean when they 
shall have told us what they have done in resentment of the 
violation of the actual territory of the United States by 
Spain, the true territory of the United States, not your new- 
fangled country over the Mississippi, but the good old 
United States — part of Georgia, of the old thirteen States, 
where citizens have been taken, not from our ships, but from 
our actual territory. 

When gentlemen have taken the padlock from our mouths 
I shall be ready to tell them what I will do relative to our 
dispute with Britain on the law of nations, on contraband, 
and such stuff. 

I have another objection to this course of proceeding. — 



9 6 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

Great Britain, when she sees it, will say the American people 
have great cause of dissatisfaction with Spain. She will see 
by the documents furnished by the President that Spain has 
outraged our territory, pirated upon our commerce, and im- 
prisoned our citizens ; and she will inquire what we have 
done. It is true, she will receive no answer ; but she must 
know what we have not done. She will see that we have not 
repelled these outrages, nor made any addition to our army 
and navy, nor even classed the militia. No, sir ; not one of 
our militia generals in politics has marshalled a single 
brigade. 

Although I have said it would be time enough to answer 
the question which gentlemen have put to me when they shall 
have answered mine ; yet, as I do not like long prorogations, 
I will give them an answer now. I will never consent to go 
to war for that which I cannot protect. I deem it no sacri- 
fice of dignity to say to the Leviathan of the deep, We are 
unable to contend with you in your own element, but if you 
come within our actual limits we will shed our last drop of 
blood in their defense. In such an event I would feel, not 
reason ; and obey an impulse which never has — which never 
can deceive me. 

France is at war with England : suppose her power on the 
continent of Europe no greater than it is on the ocean. 1 low- 
would she make her enemy feel it ? There would be a per- 
fect non-conductor between them. So with the United States 
and England; she scarcely presents to us a vulnerable point. 
Iler commerce is carried on, for the most part, in fleets; 
where in single ships, they are stout and well armed; very 
different from the state of her trade during- the American 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 97 

war, when her merchantmen became the prey of paltry priva- 
teers. Great Britain has been too long at war with the three 
most powerful maritime nations of Europe not to have learnt 
how to protect her trade. She can afford convoy to it all : 
she has eight hundred ships in commission : the navies of her 
enemies are annihilated. 

Thus this war has presented the new and curious political 
spectacle of a regular annual increase (and to an immense 
amount) of her imports and exports, and tonnage and reve- 
nue, and all the insignia of accumulating wealth, whilst in 
every former war, without exception, these have suffered a 
greater or less diminution. And wherefore? 

Because she has driven France, Spain, and Holland from 
the ocean. Their marine is no more. I verily believe that 
ten English ships of the line would not decline a meeting 
with the combined fleets of those nations. 

I forewarn the gentleman from Massachusetts, and his 
constituents of Salem, that all their golden hopes are vain. 
I forewarn them of the exposure of their trade beyond, the 
Cape of Good Hope (or now doubling it) to capture and 
confiscation ; of their unprotected seaport towns exposed to 
contribution or bombardment. Are we to be legislated into 
a war by a set of men who in six weeks after its commence- 
ment may be compelled to take refuge with us in the 
country ? 

And for what ? a mere fungus — a mushroom production 
of war in Europe, which will disappear with the first return 
of peace — an unfair truce. For is there a man so credulous 
as to believe that we possess a capital not only equal to what 
my be called our own proper trade, but large enough also 



98 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

to transmit to the respective parent States the vast and 
wealthy products of the French, Spanish, and Dutch col- 
onies ? Tis beyond the belief of any rational being. 

But this is not my only objection to entering upon this 
naval warfare. I am averse to a naval war with any nation 
whatever. I was opposed to the naval war of the last ad- 
ministration, and I am as ready to oppose a naval war of the 
present administration should they meditate such a measure. 
What ! shall this great mammoth of the American forest 
leave his native element, and plunge into the water in a mad 
contest with the shark? Let him beware that his pioboscis 
is not bitten off in the engagement. Let him stay on shore, 
and not be excited by the mussels and periwinkles on the 
strand, or political bears, in a boat to venture on the perils 
of the deep. 

Gentlemen say, Will you not protect your violated rights? 
and I say, Why take to water, where you can neither fight 
nor swin? Look at France; see her vessels stealing from 
port to port on her own coast ; and remember that she is the 
first military power of the earth, and as a naval people sec- 
ond only to England. Take away the British navy, and 
France to-morrow is the tyrant of the ocean. 

This brings me to the second point. Plow far is it politic 
in the United States to throw their weight into the scale of 
France at this moment? — from whatever motive to aid the 
views of her gigantic ambition — to make her mistress of the 
sea and land — to jeopardize the liberties of mankind. Sir, 
you may help to crush Great Britain — you may assist in 
breaking down her naval dominion, but you cannot succeed 
to it. The iron sceptre of the ocean will pass into his hands 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 99 

who wears the iron crown of the land. You may then ex- 
pect a new code of maritime law. Where will you look for 
redress? 

I can tell the gentleman from Massachusetts that there is 
nothing in his rule of three that will save us, even although 
he should outdo himself and exceed the financial ingenuity 
which he so memorably displayed on a recent occasion. No, 
sir; let the battle of Actium be once fought, and the whole 
line of seacoast will be at the mercy of the conqueror. The 
Atlantic, deep and wide as it is, will prove just as good a 
barrier against his ambition, if directed against you, as the 
Mediterranean to the power of the Caesars. 

Do I mean, when I say so, to crouch to the invader? No. 
I will meet him at the water's edge, and fight every inch of 
ground from thence to the mountains, from the mountains 
to the Mississippi. But after tamely submitting to an out- 
rage on your domicile, will you bully and look big at an in- 
sult on your flag three thousand miles off ? 

But, sir, I have yet a more cogent reason against going to 
war for the honor of the flag in the narrow seas, or any 
other maritime punctilio. It springs from my attachment to 
the principles of the government under which I live. I de- 
clare, in the face of day, that this government was not insti- 
tuted for the purposes of offensive war. No ; it was framed, 
to use its own language, for the common defense and the 
general welfare, which are inconsistent with offensive war. 

I call that offensive war which goes out of our jurisdic- 
tion and limits for the attainment or protection of objects 
not within those limits and that jurisdiction. As in 1798 I 

was opposed to this species of warfare because I be- 
L.of C. 



loo JOHN RANDOLPH. 

lieved it would raze the constitution to the very foundation, 
so in 1806 am I opposed to it, and on the same grounds. No 
sooner do you put the constitution to this use — to a t^st 
which it is bv no means calculated to endure, than its incom- 
petency to such purposes becomes manifest and apparent 
to all. I fear, if you go into a foreign war for a circuitous 
unfair carrying trade, you will come out without your con- 
stitution. Have you not contractors enough in this House ? 
Or do you want to be overrun and devoured by commissaries 
and all the vermin of contract? 

I fear, sir, that what are called the energy-men will rise 
up again — men who will burn the parchment. We shall be 
told that our government is too free ; or, as they would say, 
weak and inefficient. Much virtue, sir, in terms. That we 
must give the President power to call forth the resources of 
the nation ; that is, to filch the last shilling from our pockets 
— to drain the last drop of blood from our veins. I am 
against giving this power to any man, be he who he may. 
The American people must either withhold this power or re- 
sign their liberties. 

There is no other alternative. Nothing but the most im- 
perious necessity will justify such a grant. And is there 
a powerful enemy at our doors? You may begin with a first 
consul ; from that chrysalis state he soon becomes an em- 
peror. You have your choice. It depends upon your elec- 
tion whether you will be a free, happy, and united people at 
home, or the light of your executive majesty shall beam 
across the Atlantic in one general blaze of the public liberty. 

For my part I never will go to war but in self-defense. I 
have no desire for conquests — no ambition to possess Nova 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 101 

Scotia — I hold the liberties of this people at a higher rate. 
Much more am I indisposed to war when among the first 
means for carrying it on I see gentlemen propose the con- 
fiscation of debts due by government to individuals. Does a 
bona fide creditor know who holds his paper? Dare any 
honest man ask himself the question? 'Tis hard to say 
whether such principles are more detestably dishonest than 
they are weak and foolish. What, sir ; will you go about 
with proposals for opening a loan in one hand and a sponge 
for the national debt in the other? 

If, on a late occasion, you could not borrow at a less rate 
of interest than eight per cent, when the government avowed 
that they would pay to the last shilling of the public ability, 
at what price do you expect to raise money with an avowal of 
these nefarious opinions? God help you! if these are your 
ways and means for carrying on war — if your finances are in 
the hands of such a chancellor of the exchequer. 

Because a man can take an observation and keep a log- 
book and a reckoning ; can navigate a cock-boat to the West 
Indies, or the East ; shall he aspire to navigate the great 
vessel of state — to stand at the helm of public councils? 
"Ne sutor ultra crcpidam." (i) What are you going to war 
for? For the carrying trade. Already you possess seven- 
eighths of it. What is the object in dispute? The fair, 
honest trade, that exchanges the produce of our soil for for- 
eign articles for home consumption? Not at all. 

You are called upon to sacrifice this necessary branch of 
your navigation, and the great agricultural interest, whose 
handmaid it is, to jeopardize your best interests, for a circuit- 

1 ' ' Let not the cobbler go beyond his last." 



102 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

ous commerce, for the fraudulent protection of belligerent 
property under your neutral flag. Will you be goaded by 
the dreaming calculations of insatiate avarice to stake your 
all for the protection of this trade? I do not speak of the 
probable effects of war on the price of our produce ; severely 
as we must feel, we may scuffle through it. I speak of its 
reaction on the constitution. 

You may go to war for this excrescence of the carrying 
trade, and make peace at the expense of the constitution. 
Your executive will lord it over you, and you must make 
the best terms with the conqueror that you can. 

But the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Gregg] tells 
you that he is for acting in this, as in all things, uninfluenced 
by the opinion of any foreign minister whatever — foreign 
or, I presume, domestic. On this head I am willing to meet 
the gentleman, am unwilling to be dictated to by any min- 
ister at home or abroad. Is he willing to act on the same in- 
dependent footing? I have before protested, and I again 
protest, against secret, irresponsible, overruling influence. 
The first question I asked when T saw the gentleman's reso- 
lution was, "Is this a measure of the cabinet?" Not an 
open declared cabinet, but an invisible, inscrutable, uncon- 
stitutional cabinet — without responsibility, unknown to the 
constitution. I speak of back-stairs influence, of men who 
bring messages to this House, which, although they do not 
appear on the journals, govern its decisions. Sir, the first 
question that I asked on the subject of British relations 
was, what was the opinion of the cabinet ? What measures 
will they recommend to Congress? — well knowing that 
whatever measures we might take they must execute them, 



JOHN RANDOLPH. !o 3 

and therefore that we should have their opinion on the sub- 
ject — My answer was (and from a cabinet minister, too), 
"There is no longer any cabinet." Subsequent circumstances, 
sir, have given me a personal knowledge of the fact. It 
needs no commentary. 

But the gentleman has told you that we ought to go to 
war, if for nothing else, for the fur trade. Now, sir, the 
people on whose support he seems to calculate, follow, let me 
tell him, a better business ; and let me add that whilst men 
are happy at home reaping their own fields, the fruits of 
their labor and industry, there is little danger of their being 
induced to go sixteen or seventeen hundred miles in pursuit 
of beavers, raccoons or opossums — much less of going to 
war for the privilege. They are better employed where they 
are. 

This trade, sir, may be important to Britain, to nations 
who have exhausted every resource of industry at home — 
bowed down by taxation and wretchedness. Let them, in 
God's name, if they please, follow the fur trade. They may, 
for me, catch every beaven in North America. Yes, sir, our 
people have a better occupation — a safe, profitable, honora- 
ble employment. 

Whilst they should be engaged in distant regions in hunt- 
ing the beaver, they dread lest those whose natural prey they 
are should begin to hunt them — should pillage their prop- 
erty and assassinate their constitution. Instead of these wild 
schemes pay off your public debt, instead of prating about 
its confiscation. Do not, I beseech you, expose at once your 
knavery and your folly. You have more lands than you 
know what to do with — you have lately paid fifteen millions 



io4 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

for yet more. Go and work them — and cease to alarm the 
people with the cry of wolf until they become deaf to your 
voice or at least laugh at you. 

Mr. Chairman, if I felt less regard for what I deem the 
best interests of this nation than for my own reputation I 
should not on this day have offered to address you; but 
would have waited to come out, bedecked with flowers and 
bouquets of rhetoric, in a set speech. But, sir, I dread lest 
a tone might be given to the mind of the committee — they 
will pardon me, but I did fear, from all that I could see or 
hear, that they might be prejudiced by its advocates (under 
pretence of protecting our commerce) in favor of this ridicu- 
lous and preposterous project — I rose, sir, for one, to plead 
guilty— to declare in the face of day that 1 will not go to 
war for this carrying trade. 1 will agree to pass for an 
idiot if this is not the public sentiment; and you will find it 
to your cost, begin the war when you will. 

Gentlemen talk of 1793. They might as well go back to 
the Trojan war. What was your situation then? Then 
every heart beat high with sympathy for France— for repub- 
lican France! I am not prepared to say, with my friend 
from Pennsylvania, that we were all ready to draw our 
swords in her cause, but I affirm that we were prepared to 
have gone great lengths. 

I am not ashamed to pay this compliment to the hearts of 
the American people even at the expense of their under- 
standings. It was a noble and generous sentiment, which 
nations, like individuals, are never the worse for having felt. 
They were, I repeal it, ready to make great sacrifices for 
France. And why ready? because she was fighting the bat- 



JOHN RANDOLPH. ,o 5 

ties of the human race against the combined enemies of 
their liberty ; because she was performing the part which 
Great Britain now in fact sustains — forming the only bul- 
wark against universal dominion. Knock away her navy, 
and where are you ? Under the naval despotism of France, 
unchecked, unqualified by any antagonizing military power 
— at best but a change of masters. The tyrant of the ocean 
and the tyrant of the land is one and the same, — lord of all, 
and who shall say him nay, or wherefore doest thou this 
thing? Give to the tiger the properties of the shark, and 
there is no longer safety for the beasts of the forests or the 
fishes of the sea. 

Where was this high anti-Britannic spirit of the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania when his vote would have put an end to 
the British treaty, that pestilent source of evil to this coun- 
try ? and at a time, too, when it was not less the interest than 
the sentiment of this people to pull down Great Britain and 
exalt France. Then, when the gentleman might have acted 
with effect, he could not screw his courage to the sticking 
place. Then England was combined in what has proved a 
feeble, inefficient coalition, but which gave just cause of 
alarm to every friend of freedom. Now, the liberties of the 
human race are threatened by a single power, more formid- 
able than the coalesced world, to whose utmost ambition, 
vast as it is, the naval force of Great Britain forms the 
only obstacle. 

I am perfectly sensible and ashamed of the trespass I am 
making on the patience of the committee ; but as I know not 
whether it will be in my power to trouble them again on this 



106 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

subject I must beg leave to continue my crude and desultory 
observations. I am not ashamed to confess that they are so. 

At the commencement of this session we received a printed 
message from the President of the United States, breathing a 
great deal of national honor and indication of the outrages we 
had endured, particularly from Spain. She was specially 
named and pointed at. She had pirated upon your commerce, 
imprisoned your citizens, violated your actual territory, 
invaded the very limits solemnly established between the two 
nations by the treaty of San Lorenzo. 

Some of the State legislatures (among others the very 
State on which the gentleman from Pennsylvania relies for 
support) sent forward resolutions pledging their lives, their 
fortunes, and their sacred honor, in support of any measures 
you might take in vindication of your injured rights. Weli, 
sir, what have you done? You have had resolutions laid 
upon your table — gone to some expense of printing and sta- 
tionery — mere pen, ink, and paper, and that's all. Like true 
political quacks, you deal only in handbills and nostrums. 
Sir, I blush to see the record of our proceedings ; they resem- 
ble but the advertisements of patent medicines. Here you 
have the "Worm-destroying Losenges," there, "Church's 
Cough Drops," — and, to crown the whole, "Sloan's Vegeta- 
ble Specific," an infallible remedy for all nervous disorders 
and vertigoes of brain-sick politicians ; each man earnestly 
adjuring you to give his medicine only a fair trial. If, in- 
deed, these wonder-working nostrums could perform but 
one-half of what they promise, there is little danger of our 
dying a political death, at this time at least. But, sir, in 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 107 

politics as a physic, the doctor is oft-times the most danger- 
ous disease — and this I take to be our case at present. 

But, sir, why do you talk of Spain ? There are no longer 
Pyrenees. There exists no such nation — no such being as 
a Spanish king or minister. It is a mere juggle played off 
for the benefit of those who put the mechanism into motion. 
You know, sir, that you have no differences with Spain — 
that she is the passive tool of a superior power, to whom at 
this moment you are crouching. Are your differences in- 
deed with Spain? And where are you going to send your 
political panacea (resolutions and handbills excepted), your 
sole arcanum of government — your king cure-all ? To Ma- 
drid ? No — you are not such quacks as not to know where 
the shoe pinches — to Paris. You know at least where the 
disease lies, and there apply your remedy. When the na- 
tion anxiously demands the result of your deliberations, you 
hang your heads and blush to tell. You are afraid to tell. 
Your mouth is hermetically sealed. Your honor has re- 
ceived a wound which must not take air. Gentlemen dare 
not come forward and avow their work, much less defend 
it in the presence of the nation. Give them all they ask, 
that Spain exists, and what then? After shrinking from the 
Spanish jackal, do you presume to bully the British lion? 

But here it comes out. Britian is your rival in trade, and 
governed, as you are, by counting-house politicians: you 
would sacrifice the paramount interests of your country to 
wound that rival. For Spain and France you are carriers — 
and from customers every indignity is to be endured. And 
what is the nature of this trade? Is it that carrying trade 
which sends abroad the flour, tobacco, cotton, beef, pork, 



io 8 JOHN' RAND( >LPH. 

fish, and lumber of this country, and brings hack in return 
foreign articles necessary for our existence or comfort? 

No, sir ; 'lis a trade carried on, the Lord knows where or 
by whom : now doubling Cape Horn, now the Cape of Good 
Hope. I do not say that there is no profit in it — for it 
would not then be pursued — but 'tis a trade that tends to 
assimilate our manners and government to those of the 
most corrupt countries of Europe. Yes, sir ; and when a 
question of great national magnitude presents itself to you, 
causes those who now prate about national honor and spirit 
to pocket any insult, to consider it as a mere matter of 
debit and credit, a business of profit and loss, and nothing 
else. 

The first thing which struck my mind when this resolution 
was laid on the table was, "wide derivaturf" a question al- 
ways put to us at school — whence comes it? Is this only 
the putative father of the bantling he is taxed to maintain, 
or indeed the actual parent, the real progenitor of the child? 
or is it the production of the cabinet? But I knew you had 
no cabinet ; no system. I had seen dispatches relating to 
vital measures laid before you, the day after your final de- 
cision on those measures, four weeks after they were re- 
ceived ; not only their contents, but their very existence, all 
that time, unsuspected and unknown to men, whom the peo- 
ple fondly believe assist, with their wisdom and experience, 
at every important deliberation. 

Do you believe that this system, or rather this no system, 
will do? I am free to answer it will not. It cannot last. 
1 am not so afraid of the fair, open, constitutional, responsi- 
ble influence of government; but I shrink intuitively from 



JOHN RANDOLPH. ioy 

this left-handed, invisible, irresponsible influence which 
defies the touch but pervades and decides everything. Lei 
the executive come forward to the legislature ; let us see 
whilst we feel it. If we cannot rely on its wisdom, is it 
any disparagement to the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
to say that I cannot rely upon him ? 

No, sir, he has mistaken his talent. He is not the Palin- 
urus on whose skill the nation, at this trying moment, can 
repose their confidence. I will have nothing to do with this 
paper; much less will I endorse it and make myself respon- 
sible for its goodness. I will not put my name to it. I 
assert that there is no cabinet, no system, no plan. That 
which I believe in one place I shall never hesitate to say in 
another. This is no time, no place, for mincing our steps. 
The people have a right to know — they shall know — the state 
of their affairs, at least as far as I am at liberty to communi- 
cate them. I speak from personal knowledge. Ten days 
ago there had been no consultation ; there existed no opinion 
in your executive department ; at least, none that was avow- 
ed. On the contrary there was an express disavowal of any 
opinion whatsoever on the great subject before you ; and I 
have good reason for saying that none has been formed since. 
Some time ago a book was laid on our tables, which like 
some other bantlings, did not bear the name of its father. 
Here I was taught to expect a solution of all doubts ; an end 
to all our difficulties. If, sir, I were the foe, as I trust I 
am the friend, to this nation, I would exclaim, "Oh! that 
mine enemy would write a book." 

At the very outset, in the very first page, I believe, there 
is a complete abandonment of the principle in dispute. Has 



no JOHN RANDOLPH. 

any gentleman got the work? [It was handed by one of 
the members.] The first position taken is the broad princi- 
ple of the unlimited freedom of trade between nations at 
peace, which the writer endeavors to extend to the trade 
between a neutral and a belligerent power ; accompanied, 
however, by this acknowledgment: 

"But, inasmuch as the trade of a neutral with a belligerent 
nation might, in certain special cases, affect the safety of its 
antagonist, usage, founded on the principle of necessity, has 
admitted a few exceptions to the general rule." 

Whence comes the doctrine of contraband, blockade, and 
enemy's property? Now, sir, for what does that celebrated 
pamphlet, "War in Disguise," which is said to have been 
written under the eye of the British prime minister, contend, 
but this "principle of necessity." And this is abandoned by 
this pamphleteer at the very threshold of the discussion. 
But as if this were not enough he goes on to assign as a 
reason for not referring to the authority of the ancients, that 
"the great change which has' taken place in the state of man- 
ners, in the maxims of war, and in the course of commerce, 
make it pretty certain" — (what degree of certainty is this?) 
— "that either nothing will be found relating to the ques- 
tion, or nothing sufficiently applicable to deserve attention 
in deciding it." 

Here, sir, is an apology of the writer for not disclosing 
the whole extent of his learning (which might have over- 
whelmed the reader), in the admission that a change of cir- 
cumstances ("in the course of commerce") has made, and 
therefore will now justify, a total change of the law of na- 
tions. What more could the most inveterate advocate of 



JOHN RANDOLPH. m 

English ursupation demand? What else can they require 
to establish all and even more than they contend for? Sir, 
there is a class of men (we know them very well) who, if 
you only permit them to lay the foundation, will build you 
up, step by step, and brick by brick — very neat and showy 
if not tenable arguments. To detect them, 'tis only neces- 
sary to watch their premises, where you will often find the 
point at issue totally surrendered, as in this case it is. Again : 
is the "mare libcrum" anywhere asserted in this book — that 
free ships make free goods? 

No, sir ; the right of search is acknowledged ; that enemy's 
property is lawful prize, is sealed and delivered. And after 
abandoning these principles, what becomes of the doctrine 
that a mere shifting of the goods from one ship to another, 
the touching at another port, changes the property? Sir, 
give up this principle, and there is an end to the question. 
You lie at the mercy of the conscience of a court of admi- 
ralty. 

Is Spanish sugar or French coffee made American prop 
erty by the mere change of the cargo, or even by the landing 
and payment of the duties? Does this operatten affect a 
change of property? And when those duties are drawn 
back, and the sugars and coffees re-exported, are they not, as 
enemy's property, liable to seizure upon the principles of 
the "examination of the British doctrine," etc. And is there 
not the best reason to believe that this operation is performed 
in many if not in most cases, to give a neutral aspect and 
color to the merchandise ? 

I am prepared, sir, to be represented as willing to sur- 
render important rights of this nation to a foreign govern- 



U2 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

ment. 1 have been told that this sentiment is already whis- 
pered in the dark by time-servers and sycophants ; but if your 
clerk dared to print them I would appeal to your journals! 
— I would call for the reading of them ; but that I know 
they are not for profane eyes to look upon. I confess that 
I am more ready to surrender to a naval power a square 
league of ocean than to a territorial one a square inch of land 
within our limits ; and I am ready to meet the friends of the 
resolution on this ground at any time. 

Let them take off the injunction of secrecy. They dare 
not. They are ashamed and afraid to do it. They may give 
winks and nods and pretend to be wise, but they dare not 
come out and tell the nation what they have done. 

Gentlemen may take notes if they please ; but I will never, 
from any motives short of self-defence, enter upon war. I 
will never be instrumental to the ambitious schemes of Bona- 
parte, nor put into his hands what will enable him to wield 
the world ; and on the very principle that I wished success 
to the French arms in 1793. And wherefore? Because 
the case is changed. Great Britian can never again see the 
year 1760. • Her Continental influence is gone forever. Let 
who will be uppermost on the continent of Europe, she must 
find more than a counterpoise for her strength. Her race 
is run. She can only be formidable as a maritime power; 
and even as such perhaps not long. Are you going to jus- 
tify the acts of the last administration, for which they have 
been deprived of the government, at our instance? Are you 
going back to the ground of 1798-9? 

I ask of any man who now advocates a rupture with Eng- 
land to assign a single reason for his opinion, that would not 



JOHN RANDOLPH 113 

have justified a French war 111 1798. If injury and insult 
abroad would have justified it, we had them in abundance 
then. But what did the republicans say at that day ? That 
under the cover of a war with France the executive would 
be armed with a patronage and power which might enable 
it to master our liberties. They deprecated foreign war and 
navies, and standing armies, and loans and taxes. The de- 
lirium passed away, the good sense of the people triumphed, 
and our differences were accommodated without a war. And 
what is there in the situation of England that invites to 
war with her? 'Tis true she does not deal so largely in per- 
fectibility, but she supplies you with a much more useful 
commodity — with coarse woolens. With less professions in- 
deed she occupies the place of France in 1793. She is th-j 
sole bulwark of the human race against universal domin- 
ion. No thanks to her for it. In protecting her own exist- 
ence she ensures theirs. I care not who stands in this situa- 
tion, whether England or Bonaparte ; I practice the doctrines 
now that I professed in 1798. 

Gentlemen may hunt up the journals if they please — I 
voted against all such projects under the administration of 
John Adams, and I will continue to do so under that of 
Thomas Jefferson. Are you not contented with being free 
and happy at home ? Or will you surrender these blessings, 
that your merchants may tread on Turkish and Persian car- 
pets and burn the perfumes of the East in their vaulted 
rooms ? 

Gentlemen say, 'tis but an annual million lost, and even if 
it were five times that amount what is it compared with 
your neutral rights? Sir, let me tell them a hundred mil- 



m 4 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

lions will be but a drop in the bucket if once they launch 
without rudder or compass into this ocean of foreign war- 
fare. Whom do they want to attack — England ? They hope 
it is a popular thing, and talk about Bunker's Hill and the 
gallant feats of our revolution. But is Bunker's Hill to be the 
theatre of war ? No, sir, you have selected the ocean ; and 
the object of attack is that very navy which prevented the 
combined fleets of France and Spain from levying contribu- 
tions upon you in your own seas ; that very navy which in 
the famous war of 1798 stood between you and danger. 

Whilst the fleets of the enemy were pent up in Toulon 
or pinioned in Brest we performed wonders, to be sure ; 
but, sir, if England had drawn off, France would have told 
you quite a different tale. You would have struck no med- 
als. This is not the sort of conflict that you are to count 
upon if you go to war with Great Britian. 

"Quern Dcus vult pcrdere prius dementat." (1) And are 
you mad enough to take up the cudgels that have been struck 
from the nerveless hands of the three great maritime pow- 
ers of Europe? Shall the planter mortgage his little crop 
and jeapordize the constitution in support of commercial 
monopoly, in the vain hope of satisfying the insatiable greed- 
iness of trade? Administer the constitution upon principles 
for the general welfare, and not for the benefit of any par- 
ticular class of men. Do you meditate war for the possession 
of Baton Rouge or Mobile, places which your own laws de- 
clare to be within your limits ? Is it even for the fair trade 
that exchanges your surplus products for such foreign arti- 



1 Whom God wishes to destroy he first makes mad. 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 115 

cles as you require? No, sir, 'tis for a circuitous traffic 
— an ignis fa tuns. 

And against whom? A nation from whom you have 
anything to fear? I speak as to our liberties. No, sir, 
with a nation from whom you have nothing, or next to noth- 
ing, to fear — to the aggrandizement of one against which 
you have everything to dread. I look to their ability and in- 
terest, not to their disposition. When you rely on that, the 
case is desperate. Is it to be inferred from all this that I 
would yield to Great Britian ? No ; I would act towards 
her now as I was disposed to do towards France in 1798-0, 
— treat with her ; and for the same reason, on the same prin- 
ciples. Do I say treat with her? At this moment you have 
a negotiation pending with her government. With her you 
have not tried negotiation and failed, totally failed, as you 
have done with Spain, or rather France. And wherefore, 
under such circumstances, this hostile spirit to the one, 
and this — I won't say what — to the other? 

But a great deal is said about the laws of nations. What 
is national law but national power guided by national in- 
terest? You yourselves acknowledge and practice upon 
this principle where you can, or where you dare, — with 
the Indian tribes, for instance. I might give another and 
more forcible illustration. Will the learned lumber, of your 
libraries add a ship to your fleet or a shilling to your rev- 
enue? Will it pay or maintain a single soldier? And will 
you preach and prate of violations of your neutral rights 
when you tamely and meanly submit to the violation of your 
territory ? Will you collar the stealer of your sheep, and let 



n 6 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

him escape that has invaded the repose oi your fireside ; has 
insulted your wife and children under your own roof? 

This is the heroism of truck and traffic — the public spirit 
of sordid avarice. Great Britian violates your flag on the 
high seas. What is her situation ? Contending, not for the 
dismantling of Dunkirk, for Quebec, or Pondicherry, but 
for London and Westminster — for life. Her enemy violat- 
ing at will the territories of other nations — acquiring thereby 
a colossal power that threatens the very existence of her 
rival. But she has one vulnerable point to the arms of her 
adversary which she covers with the ensigns of neutrality. 
She draws the neutral flag over the heel of Achilles. And 
can you ask that adversary to respect it at the expense of her 
existence ? And in favor of whom ? — an enemy that re ■ 
spects no neutral territory of Europe, and not even your 
own? I repeat that the insults of Spain towards this na- 
tion have been at the instigation of France ; that there is no 
longer any Spain. Well, sir, because the French govern- 
ment do not put this into the "Moniteur," you choose to shut 
your eyes to it. None so blind as those who will not see. 
You shut your own eyes, and to blind those of other peo- 
ple you go into conclave and slink out again and say — "a 
great affair of State!" — C'cst line grande affaire a" Etat! 

It seems that your sensibility is entirely confined to the 
extremities. You may be pulled by the nose and ears, and 
never feel it; but let your strong-box be attacked, and you 
are all nerve — "Let us go to war !" Sir, if they called upon 
me only for my little peculium to carry it on, perhaps I 
might give it : but my rights and liberties are involved in 
the grant, and I will never surrender them whilst I have life. 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 117 

The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Crowninshield] 
is for sponging the debt. I can never consent to it. I will 
never bring the ways and means of fraudulent bankruptcy 
into your committee of supply. Confiscation and swind- 
ling shall never be found among my estimates, to meet the 
current expenditure of peace or war. No, sir. I have said 
with the doors closed, and I say so when they are open, 
"Pay the public debt." Get rid of that dead weight upon 
your government, that cramp upon all your measures, and 
then you may put the world at defiance. 

So long as it hangs upon you, you must have revenue, 
and to have revenue you must have commerce — commerce, 
peace. And shall these nefarious schemes be advised for 
lightening the public burdens? will you resort to these low 
and pitiful shifts? will you dare even to mention these dis- 
honest artifices to eke out your expenses when the public 
treasure is lavished on Turks and infidels ; on singing boys, 
and dancing girls ; to furnish the means of bestiality to an 
African barbarian? 

Gentlemen say that Great Britian will count upon our 
divisions. How ! What does she know of them ? Can they 
ever expect greater unanimity than prevailed at the last 
Presidential election? No, sir, 'tis the gentleman's own 
conscience that squeaks. But if she cannot calculate upon 
your divisions, at least she may reckon upon your pusillan- 
imity. She may well despise the resentment that cannot be 
excited to honorable battle on its own ground — the mere 
effusion of mercantile cupidity. 

Gentlemen talk of repealing the British treaty. The gen- 
tleman from Pennsylvania should have thought of that be- 



n8 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

fore he voted to carry it into effect. And what is all this 
for? A point which Great Britian will not abandon to Rus- 
sia you expect her to yield to you. Russia indisputably the 
second power of continental Europe, with half a million 
of hardy troops, with sixty sail of the line, thirty millions 
of subjects, a territory more extensive even than our own 
— Russia, sir, the storehouse of the British navy — whom it 
is not more the policy and the interest than the sentiment of 
that government to soothe and to conciliate ; her sole hope 
of a diversion on the Continent — her only efficient ally. What 
this formidable power cannot obtain with fleets and armies 
you will command by writ — with pot-hooks and hangers. 

I am for no such policy. True honor is always the same. 
Before you enter into a contest, public or private, be sure 
you have fortitude enough to go through with it. If you 
mean war, say so, and prepare for it. 

Look on the other side — behold the respect in which 
France holds neutral rights on land — observe her conduct 
in regard to the Franconian estates of the King of Prussia: 
1 say nothing of the petty powers — of the Elector of Baden, 
or of the Swiss: T speak of a first-rate monarchy of Eu- 
rope, and at a moment too when its neutrality was the ob- 
ject of all others nearest to the heart of the French Emperor. 
If you make him monarch of the ocean you may bid adieu 
to it forever. 

You may take your leave, sir, of navigation — even of the 
Mississippi. What is the situation of New Orleans if at- 
tacked to-morrow? Filled with a discontented and repining 
people, whose language, manners, and religion all incline 
them to the invader — a dissatisfied people, who despise the 



JOHN RANDOLPH. ,,9 

miserable governor you have set over them — whose honest 
prejudices and basest passions alike take part against you. 
I draw my information from no dubious source — from a 
native American, an enlightened member of that odious and 
imbecile government. You have official information that 
the town and its dependencies are utterly defenceless and un- 
tenable — a firm belief that, apprised of this, government 
would do something to put the place in a state of security, 
alone has kept the American portion of that community 
quiet. You have held that post — you now hold it — by the 
tenure of the naval predominance of England, and yet you 
are for a British naval war. 

There are now two great commercial nations. Great Brit- 
ain is one — we are the other. When you consider the many 
points of contact between your interests, you may be surpris- 
ed that there has been so little collision. Sir, to the other 
belligerent nations of Europe your navigation is a conven- 
ience, I might say a necessity. If you do not carry for them 
they must starve, at least for the luxuries of life, which 
custom has rendered almost indispensable. And if you can- 
not act with some degree of spirit towards those who are 
dependent upon you as carriers, do you reckon to brow- 
beat a jealous rival who, the moment she lets slip the dogs 
of war, sweeps you, at a blow, from the ocean? And cui 
bono? for whose benefit? — The planter? Nothing like it. 
The fair, honest, real American merchant? No, sir — for 
renegadoes ; to-day America — to-morrow, Danes. Go to war 
when you will, the property now covered by the American 
will then pass under the Danish or some other neutral flag. 
Gentlemen say that one English ship is worth three of ours : 



1I20 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

we shall therefore have the advantage in privateering. Did 
they ever know a nation to get rich by privateering? 

This is stuff for the nursery. Remember that your pro- 
ducts are bulky — as has been stated — that they require a 
vast tonnage. Take these carriers out of the market — 
what is the result? The manufactures of England, which 
(to use a finishing touch of the gentleman's rhetoric) ha\;e 
received the finishing stroke of art, lie in a small comparative 
compass. The neutral trade can carry them. Your produce 
rots in the warehouse — you go to Statia or St. Thomas's, 
and get a striped blanket for a joe, if you can raise one — 
double freight, charges, and commissions. Who receives 
the profit ? — The carrier. Who pays it ? — The consumer. 

All your produce that finds its way to England must bear 
the same accumulated charges, with this difference: that 
there the burden falls on the home price. I appeal to the 
experience of the last war, which has been so often cited. 
What, then, was the price of produce and of broadcloth? 

But you are told England will not make war — she has 
her hands full. Holland calculated in the same way in 
1781. How did it turn out? You stand now in the place of 
Holland, then — without her navy, unaided by the preponder- 
ating fleets of France and Spain, to say nothing of the Bal- 
tic powers. Do you want to take up the cudgels where these 
great maritime powers have been forced to drop them ? to 
meet Great Britain on the ocean and drive her off its face? 
If you are so far gone as this, every capital measure of 
your policy hitherto has been wrong. You should have nur- 
tured the old and devised new systems of taxation — have 
cherished your navy. Begin this business when you may, 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 121 

land taxes, stamp acts, window taxes, hearth money, excise, 
in all its modifications of vexation and oppression, must pre- 
cede or follow after. 

But, sir, as French is the fashion of the day, I may be 
asked for my projct. I can readily tell gentlemen what T 
will not do. I will not propitiate any foreign nation with 
money. I will not launch into a naval war with Great Brit- 
ain, although I am ready to meet her at the Cow-pens or 
Bunker's Hill. And for this plain reason. 

We are a great land animal, and our business is on shore. 
I will send her no money, sir, on any pretext whatsoever, 
much less on pretence of buying Labrador or Botany Bay, 
when my real object was to secure limits which she formally 
acknowledged at the peace of 1783. I go further — I would 
(if anything) have laid an embargo. This would have got 
our own property home and our adversary's- into our power. 
If there is any wisdom left among us the first step toward 
hostility will always be an embargo. In six months all your 
mercantile megrims would vanish. As to us, although it 
would cut deep, we can stand it. Without such a precaution, 
go to war when you will, you go to the wall. As to debts, 
strike the balance to-morrow, and England is, I believe, in 
our debt. 

I hope, sir. to be excused for proceeding in this desultory 
course. I flatter myself I shall not have occasion again to 
trouble you — I know not that I shall be able — certainly 
not willing, unless provoked irt self-defence. I ask your 
attention to the character of the inhabitants of that southern 
country on whom gentlemen rely for the support of their 
measure. Who and what are they? A simple agricultu- 



122 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

ral people, accustomed to travel in peace to market with the 
produce of their labor. Who takes it from us? 

Another people devoted to manufactures — our sole source 
of supply. I have seen some stuff in the newspapers about 
manufactures in Saxony, and about a man who is no longer 
the chief of a dominant faction. The greatest man whom 
I ever knew — the immortal author of the letters of Curtius 
— has remarked the proneness of cunning people to wrap up 
and disguise, in well-selected phrases, doctrines too deformed 
and detestable to bear exposure in naked words ; by a 
judicious choice of epithets to draw the attention from the 
lurking principle beneath and perpetuate delusion. But a 
little while ago, and any man might be proud to be consid- 
ered as the head of the republican party. Now, it seems. 
'tis reproachful to be deemed the chief of a dominant fac- 
tion. 

Mark the magic words ! Head, chief. Republican party, 
dominant faction. But as to these Saxon manufactures. 
What became of their Dresden china? Why, the Prussian 
bayonets have broken all the pots, and you are content with 
Worcestershire or Saffordshire ware. There are some 
other fine manufactures on the Continent, but no supply, 
except, perhaps, of linens, the article we can best dispense 
with. A few individuals, sir, may have a coat of Louviers 
cloth, or a service of Sevres china; but there is too little, 
and that little too dear, to furnish the nation. You must de- 
pend on the fur-trade in earnest, and wear buffalo hides and 
bear .skins. 

Can any man who understands Europe pretend to say that 
a particular foreign policy is now right because it would 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 123 

have been expedient twenty or even ten years ago, without 
abandoning all regard for common sense? Sir, it is the 
statesman's province to be guided by circumstances, to anti- 
cipate, to foresee them, to give them a course and a direc- 
tion, to mold them to his purpose. 

It is the business of a counting house clerk to peer into 
the day-book and ledger, to see no further than the spectacles 
on his nose, to feel not beyond the pen behind his ear, to 
chatter in coffee-houses, and be the oracle of clubs. From 
1783 to 1793, and even later (I don't stickle for dates), 
France had a formidable marine — so had Holland — so had 
Spain. The two first possessed thriving manufactures and 
a flourishing commerce. Great Britain, tremblingly alive to 
her manufacturing interests and carrying trade, would have 
felt to the heart any measure calculated to favor her rivals 
in these pursuits ; she would have yielded then to her fears 
and her jealousy alone. 

What is the case now? She lays an extra duty on her 
manufactures, and there ends the question. If Georgia shall 
(from whatever cause) so completely monopolize the cult- 
ure of cotton as to be able to lay an export duty of three 
per cent upon it, besides taxing its cultivators in every other 
shape that human or infernal ingenuity can devise, is Penn- 
sylvania likely to rival her or take away the trade ? 

But, sir, it seems that we who are opposed to this resolu- 
tion are men of no nerves — who trembled in the day of the 
P.ritish treaty — cowards (I presume) in the reign of terror! 
Is this true? Hunt up the journals; let our actions toll. 
We pursue our unshaken course. We care not for the na- 
tions of Europe, but make foreign relations bend to our poli- 



I2 4 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

tical principles and subserve our country's interest. We have 
no wish to see another Actiuin, or Pharsalia, or the lieu- 
tenants of a modern Alexander playing at piquet or all-fours 
for the empire of the world. Tis poor comfort to us to be 
told that France has too decided a taste for luxurious things 
to meddle with us; that Egypt is her object, or the coast of 
Rarbary, and at the worst we shall be the last devoured. 

We are enamored with neither nation — we would play 
their own game upon them, use them for our interest and 
convenience. Rut with all my abhorrence of the British 
government I should not hesitate between Westminster Hall 
and a Middlesex jury on the one hand, and the wood of 
Vincennes and a file of grenadiers, on the other. That jury 
trial which walked with Home Tooke and Hardy through 
the flames of ministerial persecutions is, I confess, more to 
my taste than the trial of the Duke d'Enghien. 

Mr. Chairman, I am sensible of having detained the com- 
mittee longer than I thought — certainly much longer than I 
intended. I am equally sensible of their politeness, and not 
less so, sir, of your patient attention. It is your own indul- 
gence, sir, badly requited indeed, to which you owe this per- 
secution. I might offer another apology for these undigested, 
desultory remarks; my never having seen the treasury docu- 
ments. Until I came into the House this morning I have 
been stretched on a sick bed. 

But when I behold the affairs of this nation, instead of 
being where I hoped, and the people believed they were, in 
the hands of responsible men, committed to Tom. Dick, and 
Harry — to the refuse of the retail trade of politics — I do 
feel, I cannot help feeling, the most deep and serious con- 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 125 

cern. If the executive government would step forward and 
say, "Such is our plan, such is our opinion, and such are our 
reasons in support of it," I would meet it fairly, would open- 
ly oppose or pledge myself to support it. But without com- 
pass or polar star I will not launch into an ocean of unex- 
plored measures which stand condemned by all the informa- 
tion to which I have access. The constitution of the United 
States declares it to be the province and duty of the Presi- 
dent "to give to Congress, from time to time, information 
of the state of the Union, and recommend to their considera- 
tion such measures as he shall judge expedient and neces- 
sary." Has he done it? I know, sir, that we may say, 
and do say, that we are independent (would it were true) ; 
as free to give a direction to the executive as to receive it 
from him. But do what you will, foreign relations — every 
measure short of war, and even the course of hostilities — 
depend upon him. He stands at the helm and must guide 
the vessel of state. 

I think our citizens just as well entitled to know what has 
passed as the Marquis Yrujo, who has bearded your Presi- 
dent to his face, insulted your government within its own 
peculiar jurisdiction, and outraged all decency. Do you 
mistake this diplomatic puppet for an automaton? He has 
orders for all he does. Take his instructions from his pocket 
to-morrow, they are signed "Charles Maurice Talleyrand." 

Let the nation know what they have to depend upon. Be 
true to them, and trust me, they will prove true to them- 
selves and to you. The people are honest ; now at home at 
their plows, not dreaming of what you are about. But the 
spirit of inquiry that has too long slept will be, must be, 
awakened. Let them begin to think ; not to say such things 
are proper because they have been done, but, what has been 
done? and wherefore? — and all will be right. 



i 2 6 JOHN RANDOLPH. 







ANECDOTES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 

The following entertaining anecdotes are taken very largely from 
that excellent work, "Reminiscences of John Randolph of Roanoke," 
by Powhatan Bouldin. 

PERSONAL APPEARANCE OK RANDOLPH. 

The moment one laid eyes on Mr. Randolph he felt con- 
scious of seeing a great man . Under great mental excite- 
ment his appearance was unusually striking. On one oc- 
casion, when he was about to make a speech at Charlotte 
Court- House, a gentleman said of him: 

"As he saw the people gather around the stand, his eye 
began to kindle, his color to rise; and as he became more 
and more animated, his eyes sparkled brighter and bright- 
er, and his cheeks grew rosy, the wrinkles on his face 
seemed to disappear with the sallowness and languor, and 
he became almost transfigured." 

This was the case with Patrick Henry on great occa- 
sions; but the appearance of Mr. Randolph was remark- 
able on all occasions. "Patrick Henry's countenance, 
which," Mr. Baldwin in his Party Leaders remarks, "un- 
der the excitement of speech was almost articulate with 
the emotions that thrilled his soul, was almost dull in re- 
pose; and Mr. Clay had nothing but a lofty brow and 
bright eye to redeem his face from uncommon plainness." 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 127 

There was nothing plain or common about the features 
of Mr. Randolph. When he made his appearance he not 
only caused the schoolboy to drop his paddle, while the 
ball passed unheeded by, but the pious member of the 
church forgot to say his prayers, and the grave senator 
turned his eyes from the affairs of state and fixed them on 
him. 

RANDOLPH AND HIS OPPONENT. 

About this time our difficulties with England had great- 
ly increased — war became probable; the administration 
resorted to measures of restriction upon commerce, such 
as embargo and non-intercourse laws. On these measures 
Mr. Randolph took strong grounds against the adminis- 
tration. The consequence was, that at the next congres- 
sional election he was opposed by John W. Eppes, who 
was the son-in-law of Thomas Jefferson. 

In due time the election came on. Mr. Eppes brought 
with him from Washington what was called a cart-load of 
authorities, laid the books on the stile in front of the 
court-house — large tomes of documents, such as had nev- 
er been seen by the natives. There was an immense 
crowd present. Natives and foreigners from all the sur- 
rounding and adjoining counties came to hear Mr. Ran- 
dolph speak and to see the son-in-law of Thomas Jef- 
ferson. 

Eppes led off from the stile, knee-deep in books and 
documents. He was rather a dull speaker — read too 
much, and fatigued the people. Mr. Randolph in reply 
remarked that "the gentleman is a very good reader" 
His wit and humor soon caused interruption by some of 



i z8 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

the injudicious and impulsive friends of Mr. Eppes: Col- 
onel Gideon Spencer was the first who interrupted him. 
High words ensued; the excitement was beyond any- 
thing I ever witnessed; the crowd seemed to apprehend 
a collision of parties. Some friend of Mr. Randolph hal- 
looed out, "Stand firm and keep cool," or something to 
that effect. Then we have the reply of Mr. Randolph 
which has been so often repeated that it has become stale, 
"I am as cool as the centre seed of the cucumber." 

Mr. Randolph remained on the court-yard for some 
time after the speaking was over. The excitement was 
even greater than before. Mr. Randolph at that time 
had an overseer by the name of P., a large, rough, raw- 
boned man, head and shoulders above the crowd. 

This man P., with a large horseman's whip in his 
hand, held in a threatening attitude, followed Mr. Ran- 
dolgh through the crowd, which was waving to and fro, 
insisting that Mr. Randolph would be attacked and that 
he should be protected; while Randolph, on his part, di- 
rected P. to keep quiet. The day, however, passed with- 
out disturbance. — IV. B. Green. 

RANDOLPH AS AN ELECTIONEER. 

Mr. Randolph once remarked, that "if electioneering 
were allowed in heaven, it would corrupt the angels." 
If forcing a little civility towards the common people, for 
whom he really had scarcely any sympathy, be corrup- 
tion, why then it must be admitted that he was slightly 
corrupted. He was never so civil as on the eve of elect- 
ion. It was the Saturday before the Charlotte election, 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 129 

as we shall learn from the "Recollections" of Hon. James 
W. Bouldin, that he conversed freely and familiarly with 
the people on various subjects, and evinced a great de- 
sire to make himself agreeable and acceptable. 

But, judging from one little circumstance, which was 
related to us by a reverend gentleman, whose mind was 
stored with some lively recollections of his peculiar coun- 
tryman, we should say he had no civilitv to waste upon 
those who were of no use to him. 

Riding from Prince Edward court he overtook a gen- 
tleman on horseback. 

"How do you do Mr. L,?" said Mr. Randolph, in the 
politest manner imaginable. 

Having exchanged salutations, he informed the gen- 
tleman that he was a candidate again for Congress, and 
asked him outright for his vote. 

Mr. L. regretted that by the laws of the land he was 
n'ot entitled to vote. 

"Good morning, Mr. L.," replied Mr. Randolph abrupt- 
ly, and rode off. 

RANDOLPH'S UNFITNESS FOR HIGH OFFICE. 

We have a county pride (the writer was born and raised 
in Charlotte), a State pride, and a national pride in Mr. 
Randolph, but we do not regret that he was not made 
President of the United States. If, by nothing else, he 
was disqualified for that office by his misanthropy. 

Whatever pearls there may be in the head, if poison be 
in the heart, the man is unfit. One of his biographers 
might say he ought never to have occupied the presiden- 



I 30 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 



tial chair, "because he wanted the profound views of a 
great statesman." His views, we submit, were profound 
upon every subject he touched. That is not what was 
the matter. His affections were too contracted. His 
views were indeed profound, but he wished to turn them 



< ■-»-<* siy^jac'*-. 




Old Court- House at Williamsburg, Va., whore Randolph attended 
William and Mary College. 

to the advantage of his own State only. His mind was 
expanded, but he never could expand his soul, so as to 
include the entire nation. 

It is natural and well for one to desire the prosperity 
and glory of his own State; but if his feelings be as in- 
tensely Virginian, as Mr. Randolph's, his ambition should 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 131 

be limited to the highest position which that State can 
confer. And here we take occasion to remark, that the 
only act which mars the beauty of Mr. Randolph's po- 
litical life was his acceptance of a foreign mission. 

We repeat he was not qualified for a high executive 
office, nor do we imagine that he was much disappointed 
at not being made President of the United States. 

RANDOLPH DYING AND YET LIVING. 

For the following curious incident we are indebted to 
Colonel Thomas S. Flournoy, who, though a lad at the 
time, has a vivid recollection of the scene he describes. 

He says that, in the year of 1829, ne an( ^ ms father 
were on their w r ay to Halifax Court-House; about sunset 
they stopped at Roanoke; Johnny, Mr. Randolph's body 
servant, met them, and informed his master of their ar- 
rival. They were invited into Mr. Randolph's bed-room, 
and what followed we will give as nearly as possible in 
the language of our witness. 

Colonel Flournoy is a man of national reputation, and 
we are glad to have such undoubted authority for the 
strange statement which he makes. He says: "My fath- 
er inquired after Mr. Randolph's health. His reply was: 
'John, I am dying: I shall not live through the night.' 

"My father informed him that we were on our way to 
Halifax court. He requested us to say to the people on 
Monday, court day, that he was no longer a candidate for 
the convention; that he did not expect to live through 
the night, certainly not till the meeting of the conven- 
tion. 



,32 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

"He soon began to discuss the questions of reform and 
the proposed changes in the constitution. Becoming ex- 
cited, he seemed to forget that he was a 'dying' man. In 
a short time we were invited to tea, and when we re- 
turned to his room we found him again in a 'dying' con- 
dition, but, as before, he soon began to discuss the sub- 
ject of the convention; and becoming more and more an- 
imated, he rose up in bed — my father and myself being 
the only auditors — and delivered one of the most inter- 
esting speeches, in conversational style, that it was ever 
my good fortune to hear, occupying the time, from half 
past eight till midnight. 

. "The next morning, immediately after breakfast, Mr. 
Randolph sent for us again. We found him again in a 
'dying' condition. He stated to us that he was satisfied 
that he would not live through the day, and repeated his 
request that my father would have it announced to the 
people of Halifax that he declined being a candidate for 
the convention. Once more he became animated while 
discussing the convention, and kept us till 10 o'clock at 
his house. When we were about to start he took solemn 
leave of us, saying: 'In all probability you will never see 
us again.' 

"Before we reached Clarke's Ferry, five miles distant, 
I heard some one coining on horseback, pushing to over- 
take us, which proved to be Mr. Randolph, with Johnny 
in a sulky following. 

"We travelled on together until we came to the road 
leading to Judge Leigh's. Mr. Randolph then left us, 
to spend the night with Judge Leigh. The next morn- 



JOHN RANDOLPH. i 3 3 

ing, Monday, he rode nine miles to court, where an im- 
mense crowd of people had assembled to hear him. He 
addressed them in the open air on the subject of the con- 
vention in a strain of argument and sarcastic eloquence 
rarely equalled by any one." 

RANDOLPH AND VEGETABLE LIFE. 

Mr. William H. Elliott relates the following story: 
"I sometimes on Friday evening accompanied my school- 
fellow, Tudor Randolph, who was an amiable youth, to 
Roanoke, to hunt and fish and swim. 

"The house was so completely and closely environed 
by trees and underwood of original growth, that it seemed 
to have been taken by the top and let down into the 
bosom of a dense virgin forest. Mr. Randolph would 
never permit even a switch to be cut anywhere near the 
house. Without being aware of such an interdiction I 
one day committed a serious trespass. 

"Tudor and I were one day roving in the woods near 
the house, when I observed a neat hickory plant, about 
an inch thick, which I felled. Tudor expressed his re- 
gret after seeing what I had done, saying he was afraid 
his uncle would be angry. I went immediately to Mr. 
Randolph and informed him of what I had ignorantly 
done, and expressed regret for it. 

"He took the stick, looked pensively at it for some sec- 
onds, as if commiserating its fate. Then looking at me 
more in sorrow than in anger, he said: 

'"Sir, I would not have had it done for fifty Spanish 
milled dollars!' 



i 34 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

"I had seventy-five cents in my pocket, at that time 
called fonr-and-sixpence, and had some idea of offering it 
to the owner of the premises as an equivalent for the 
damage I had done, but when I heard about the fifty 
.Spanish milled dollars, I was afraid of insulting him by 
offering the meagre atonement of seventy-five cents. I 
wished very much to get away from him, but thought it 
rude to withdraw abruptly without knowing whether he 
was done with me. 

'"Did yon want this for a cane?' 

"No, sir. 

'"No, yon are not old enough 
to need a cane.' 

'"Did yon want it for any par- 
ticular purpose?' 

"No, sir, I only saw it was a 
pretty stick, and thought I'd cut 
it. 

"He said we can be instified Peyton Randolph, President 
ne miu, we can uc jumhicu First Continental Congress. 

iii taking animal life, only to fur- Relative ^ John Randoipn. 
nish us food, or to remove some hurtful object out of 
the way. We cannot be justified in taking even vegeta- 
ble life without having some useful object in view. 
"He then ([noted the following lines from Cowper. 




"I would not cuter on my list of friends, 

Tho' graced with polished manners and fine sense, 

Vet wanting sensibility, the man, 

\\ ho needlessly set foot upon a worm." 

'"Now," he continued, 'God Almighty planted this 
thing, and you have killed it without any adequate ob- 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 135 

ject. It would have grown to a large nut-tree, in whose 
boughs numerous squirrels would have gamboled and 
feasted on its fruit. Those squirrels in their turn might 
have furnished food for some human beings.' 

"Here he made a pause, but looked as if he had some- 
thing more to say, yet only added. 

"'I hope and believe, sir, you will never do the like 
again.' "Never, sir never!" 

"He got up and put the stick in a corner, and I made 
my escape to Tudor in an adjacent room, where he had 
remained an invisible but sympathizing auditor of this 
protacted rebuke. 

"It was some time before I could cut a switch or a fish- 
ing rod without feeling that I was doing some sort of vi- 
olence to the economy of the vegetable kingdom. 

"When reflecting on this passage of my boyish history, 
I have thought that Mr. Randolph's tenderness for vege- 
table life, as evinced on this occasion, was strangely con- 
trasted with the terrific onslaughts he sometimes perpe- 
trated on human feelings. But Mr. Randolph was not 
a subject for ordinary speculation. He would sometimes 
surprise his enemy by unexpected civility, and anon, 
mortify his friend by undeserved abruptness. 

"He was an edition of Man, of which there was but one 
copy, and he was that copy. Sometimes he would take 
the whole world in the arms of his affection. When in 
a different mood, he seemed ready to hurl the offending 
planet into the furnace of the sun." 



136 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

ECCENTRIC EVEN WITH CHILDREN. 

Randolph's eccentricities, largely the result of his ill health 
and abnormal physical sensibilities, extended even to the 
young people with whom he came in contact. He was often 
gentle as a refined woman to them. Again he would flare 
up at them as if they ought to have the consideration and 
wisdom of maturity in dealing with what he himself, in his 
sane moments, knew to be an unaccountable temperament. 

It is seldom that he attempted to unbend with children, 
and he never quite succeeded. He always seemed to feel 
that the burden lay upon him to "point of moral or adorn 
a tale," to deliver a set speech or lecture upon whatever 
theme or occurrence was to the fore. 

The story of the little hickory switch, cut by his nephew's 
playmate with boyish naturalness, has already been told — 
how Mr. Randolph took the occasion to deliver then and 
there a moral lecture, taking for his theme the sacredness 
of vegetable life. 

Upon another occasion three boys were visiting Mr. 
Randolph. After spending a long summer's day in hunt- 
ing squirrels, climbing trees, swimming, and other tiring 
boyish sports, they and the statesman of Roanoke retired 
together to their sleeping room. The boys slept on the 
floor, Mr. Randolph in a bed by himself. When thus 
stretched out at full length under a single sheet, he is 
described as looking "like a pair of oyster tongs." He was 
reading a book by the light of a candle. At length he 
dropped his book, looked up at the ceiling and solemnly 
delivered this query : 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 137 

"Boys, why may not the earth be an animal?" 

All were either too dull or too sleepy to answer and there 
was a deep silence, which probably did not displease Mr. 
Randolph, as he was enabled to continue : 

"The ocean of the earth may be regarded as the great 
receptacle of the blood, or the heart, the rivers are the veins 
and arteries, the rocks are the bones, the trees are the hair 
of the animal, the soil the scalp, and men and other vermin 
inhabit the surface. If we dig a hole in the earth or wound 
it in any way, we find that it has a tendency to heal up." 

Tudor, one of the boys, was fat and perhaps more over- 
come with the exercises of the day than the others. He 
therefore not only fell asleep, despite this impressive parallel, 
but commenced to snore. 

Randolph's quick ear caught the sound and he dropped 
his flashing eyes upon the boys with an indignant "Is that 
b.eef-headed fellow asleep already?" 

As the beef-headed nephew continued to snore, Ran- 
dolph impatiently put out his candle and turned toward the 
wall in disgust. 

TENDER TO THE WEAK. 

Like many possessed with a terrible mental energy Ran- 
dolph was tender as a woman when in the presence of those 
whom he knew were powerless before him. Not a little 
of his magnetic power dwelt in his eyes and of this he 
was aware. 

On these points, William H. Elliott, of Charlotte county, 
who, with Mr. Randolph's nephew Tudor, attended a classi- 
cal school a short distance from Roanoke, relates that the 



138 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

statesman with the withering sarcasm and the blasting eye 
was among the visitors who called one evening to hear the 
boys declaim. When the fact became known there was a 
wholesale panic among the pupils and they all begged to 
have declamations postponed. But the master of the school 
believed that the Randolph Presence would prove a heroic 
remedy for stage fright. 

The visitors were on one side of the room, the boys oc- 
cupied a bench on the other. The narrator of the story was 
the youngest of the pupils and perhaps the most timid. 
He was also first on the list and the thought of declaiming 
before the terrible John Randolph of Roanoke was little 
less than annihilation. 

"But all suspense must end somehow or other. At length 
our dominee looked towards us with a stern expression — 
'time for exercises to commence.' 

"It was time to move now, live or die. I rose, advanced 
a step or two on the floor and made my bow, without ven- 
turing to look directly at him. I saw that Mr. Randolph 
returned my bow, though no one else did. I regarded all 
the rest of the company as only so many saplings in the 
\\< lods. 

"It may well be supposed that I commenced in a very 
tremulous manner ; for I imagined that he was stabbing me 
through and through with his perforating dirk-like gaze. 
After twisting and wriggling about for some minutes like 
a worm in the focus of a sun glass, I ventured to raise my 
eyes to him and to my inexpressible comfort and encourage- 
ment, I found that he had un-Randolphed himself, pro tern. 
That is to say. by quenching his eyes, looking down on the 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 139 

floor and assuming a listless uncriticising air, he had diluted 
himself in the crowd around him. 

"All this, I have since thought, was done to lessen, if 
possible, the embarrassment of the speakers ; for he saw 
intuitively that his presence was oppressive. But at that 
time, when I saw him look so humble, I fancied I was gett- 
ing the better of him. While I had him down, I poured 
it upon him ; my enthusiasm arose and I fairly deluged him 
with a cataract of Fox's eloquence. When I concluded he 
seemed to come partially to life ; looked up with a pleased 
expression, as much as to say, 'That does pretty well.' ' 

In his old age, another Charlotte county man relates a 
less brave experience ; it was his first sight of Mr. Ran- 
dolph, while he was a schoolboy: "He was riding by on 
horseback. I had the paddle raised to strike a ball while 
playing a game of cat. So remarkable was his appearance 
that I failed to strike while gazing at him. I had no idea 
who he was, or that he was a distinguished man." 

Randolph's one great anchor. 

Randolph once wrote to a friend : "I am a fatalist. I 
am all but friendless. Only one human being ever knew 
me. She only knew me." 

That one and only human being was the one and only 
of many sensitive, harassed lives — his mother. She died 
before he was fifteen years of age and when she herself was 
but thirty-six, leaving behind the pervading fragrance of a 
gentle wisdom and piety, as well as of a rare wit and beauty 
of person. She was the one great anchor of his being and 
it was the application of her counsels which saved his fame 



l 4 o JOHN RANDOLPH. 

from total wreckage. She it was who- inspired him with the 
ambition to become an orator "as great a speaker as Jerman 
Baker or Edmund Randolph," and during his early years 
taught him from the masters of eloquence herself. "That 
gave a bent to my disposition," he continues. "At Princeton 
college, where I spent a few months, the prize of elocution 
was borne away by mouthers and ranters. I never would 
speak if I could possibly avoid it, and, when I could not, 
repeated, without gesture, the shortest piece that I had com- 
mitted to memory. I remember some verses from Pope, 
and the first anonymous letter from Newberg, made up the 
sum and substance of my spoutings and I can yet repeat 
much of the first epistle (to Lord Chatham) of the former 
and a good deal of the latter. I was then as conscious of 
my superiority over my competitors in delivery and elocu- 
tion, as I am now that they are sunk in oblivion; and I 
despised the award and the umpires in the bottom of my 
heart. I believe there is nowhere such foul play as among 
professors and schoolmasters; more especially if they are 
priests. I have had a contempt for college honors ever 
since." 

It was long before this, when the boy was about eight 
years of age, that his mother had planted in his breast the 
determination to bind himself for life to the family estate. 
When riding over the great Raonoke plantation one day she 
took John up behind her and waving her hand to cover 
the broad view, said : "Johnny, all this land belongs to 
you and your brother Theodorick ; it is your father's in- 
heritance. When you get to be a man you must not sell 
your land. It is the first step toward ruin for a boy to 



JOHN RANDOLPH. , 4 , 

part with his father's home. Be sure to keep it as long as 
you live. Keep your land and your land will keep you." 

And thus it proved. Roanoke, with its wild, primeval 
solitude — virtually his only white companion a young rela- 
tive, Theodore Dudley — was his one great anchor and held 
his brilliant mind from being buffeted hither and thither by 
the insane promptings of his passions. Here he could and 
did often retire from the world, only receiving and corres- 
ponding with a few friends. 

SELF-CONSCIOUS GENIUS. 

There is no doubt that Randolph was intensely self-con- 
scious, which is usually a result of physicial disease and ab- 
normal sensibilities. There is no doubt also that his strong 
passions or mental intensity often carried that self com- 
pletely out of his miserable body. But even as a young 
man the first impression left upon strangers, after they had 
recovered from his remarkable appearance, was that he was 
one who appreciated the fact that he was not as others are. 

A Charleston, S. C, bookseller has described the wonder- 
ful transformation which came over Randolph's face, when 
he passed, like a flash, from his impudent to his rapt state 
of being; it may be said that the young man was at the 
time on a visit to a companion and that he had formed the 
acquaintance of a handsome, hearty old Scotch baronet, 
who was as fond of horses and horse racing as he — the 
Scotchman being probably his companion of the narrative: 

"On a bright sunny morning, early in February, 1796, 
might have been seen entering my bookstore in Charleston, 
S. C, a fine looking, florid complexioned, old gentleman, 



i 4 2 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

with hair white as snow, which, contrasted with his own 
complexion, showed him to have been a free liver, or bon 
vivant of the first order. Along with him was a tall, gawky- 
looking flaxen-haired stripling, apparently of the age from 
sixteen to eighteen, with a complexion of a good parch- 
ment color, beardless chin, and as much assumed self-con- 
sequence as any two-footed animal I ever saw. This was 
John Randolph. 

"I handed himi from the shelves volume after volume, 
which he tumbled carlessly over and handed back again. 
At length he hit upon something that struck his fancy. My 
eye happened to be fixed upon his face at the moment, and 
never did I witness so perfect a change of the human 
countenance. That which before was dull and heavy, in a 
moment became animated and flushed with the brightest 
beams of intellect. He stepped up to the old gray-headed gen- 
tleman, and, giving him a thundering slap on the shoulder, 
said, 'Jack, look at this!' I was young then, but I never 
can forget the thought that rushed upon my mind at the 
moment, which was that he was the most impudent youth 
I ever saw." 

Randolph's minor tastes. 

During the early years of his public life, Randolph drank 
but little more than wine and coffee. His dwelling on his 
Charlotte farm was a single-story wooden building, with 
two rooms down stairs and two more under the roof. He 
had no unnecessary furniture, but what he had was of the 
neatest kind and generally of the best materials. One of 
his favorite breakfasts was coffee, butter and honey, with 
cold bacon. 



JOHN RANDOLPH. i 43 

Randolph was particularly fond of good coffee — good 
and strong. If an inferior article was offered his sarcasm 
had no bounds. On one occasion, while stopping at a hotel, 
a cup of so-called coffee was set at his plate. One glance of 
his eye and he beckoned the waiter. 

"Servant," said he, "if this be coffee, give me tea, and 
if it be tea, give me coffee." 

Randolph was as fond of horses as Webster was of cattle 
and imported not a few blooded English stallions and 
mares. He occasionally put horses on the turf, but without 
much success. 

It is related that while attending a famous race in his 
day between "Eclipse" and "Henry" — a Northern and a 
Southern horse — a stranger stepped up to him and offered 
to bet five hundred dollars on the former. 

Of course Randolph was Southern to the core. 

"Done," he said promptly. 

"Colonel Thompson will hold the stakes," replied the 
stranger. 

"But who will hold Colonel Thompson?" promptly in- 
quired Mr. Randolph. 

And Colonel Thompson's friend promptly retreated. 

Randolph was a skillful hunter and one of the best marks- 
men in the South. His love of dogs was great and when- 
ever he made a visit to a friend's house he usually brought 
them with him. One who knows says : "They were suffered 
to poke their noses into everything and go where they 
pleased, from kitchen to parlor. They were a great annoy- 
ance to ladies and housekeepers. This, however, was quietly 



, 44 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

submitted to, as any unkind treatment to his dogs would 
have been regarded as an insult to himself." 

Randolph had a fine taste for music, which he says he in- 
herited from his grandmother. This he never cultivated, 
"owing," he adds, "in a great measure to the low estimate 
that I saw the fiddling, piping gentry held in when I was 
young, but partly to the torture that my poor brother used 
to inflict upon me when essaying to learn to play upon the 
violin, now about forty years ago. 

"I have a taste for painting, but never attempted drawing. 
I had read a great deal upon it and had seen a few good 
pictures before I went to England. There I astonished some 
of their connoisseurs as much by the facility with which I 
pointed out the hand of a particular master, without refer- 
ence to the catalogue, as by my exact knowledge of the 
geography, topography and statistics of the country. 

"For poetry I have had a decided taste from my child- 
hood, yet never attempted to write one line of it. This taste 
I have sedulously cultivated. I believe I was deterred from 
attempting poetry by the verses of Billy Mumford and some 
other taggers of rime, which I heard praised (I allude to 
espistles in verse, written at 12 or 13 years old) but secretly 
in my heart despised. I also remembered to have heard 
some poetry of Lord Chatham and of Mr. Fox, which I 
thought then, and still think, to be unworthy of their illus- 
trious names — and before Horace had taught me that 'neith- 
er gods, nor men, nor booksellers' stalls could endure midd- 
ling poetry' I thought none but an inspired pen should 
attempt the task." 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 145 

Randolph's domestic responsibilities. 

Randolph's talented and high-minded brother, Richard, 
died when the statesman was twenty-three years of age, and 
three years before his first election to Congress. This was 
a blow scarcely less severe than that inflicted by his mother's 
death, not only because the ties between them were close 
and strong, but he had hoped great things from that brother, 
who was then generally pronounced "the most promising 
man in Virginia." 

John Randolph thus became the head of the estate at 
Bizarre, on the Appomatox, where he had lived with his 
brother and his family, as well as that of Roanoke on the 
river by that name. Subsequently and after his removel to 
Roanoke the house at Bizarre was burned with his valuable 
library. For nearly fifteen years he continued at the head 
of the household, which consisted of the widow and her 
two young children, and his cousin, Mrs. Dudley, with her 
two children. The estate was large and his brothers had 
liberated all his slaves. Although there were some two 
hundred negroes on the Roanoke estate, the liberation of 
the Bizarre contingent doubtless made Mr. Randolph's con- 
duct of the estate more difficult than it was before. 

This misfortune instead of softening and subduing him 
seems to have made him more restless and irritable, and, 
although he supervised the household in a general way, he 
did not remain there long at any one time. Other mem- 
bers of the household appear to have found it a haven. 

The poor man had his qualms of conscience at this in- 
ability to compose and content himself, as who can doubt 
after reading such words as these from him: "Mrs. Ran- 



i 4 6 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

dolph, of Bizarre, my brother's widow, was beyond all com- 
parison the nicest and best housewife that I ever saw. Not 
one drop of water was ever suffered to stand on her side- 
board except what was in the pitcher ; the house, from cellar 
to garret, and in every part, as clean as hands could make 
it ; and everything as it should be to suit even my fastidious 
taste. Never did I see or smell anything to offend my 
senses or my imagination." 

Randolph's room was under the chamber occupied by 
Mrs. Dudley and her children and she has already told, in 
the course of this narrative, how she never waked in the 
night that she did not hear him restlessly moving about and 
muttering or declaiming to himself. She also says that even 
then he pursued no systematic course of reading ; system was 
as impossible to him as a restless wild animal in confine- 
ment. She frequently heard him lament that he was fond 
of light reading. He had a faculty, also, of seeming to 
absorb a book without seeming to read it, and Mrs. Dudley 
says that he often would seat himself by the candle, where 
she and Mrs. Randolph were knitting, turn over the leaves 
of a book carelessly like a child, and then lay it down and 
tell more about it than others who had carefully studied it. 

Mr. Randolph's most sacred responsibility was the care 
and education of his elder two nephews, the sons of his fa- 
vorite brother, St. George and Tudor. So far as Providence 
would permit, this task he accomplished with loving fidelity. 
But the mingled veins of mental and physical unsoundness — 
as the world judges it — seemed to run through the family 
tree. His eldest nephew, St. George, became insane over a 
love affair, in 1814, and the younger, Tudor, died of con- 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 147 

sumption at Cheltenham, England, in the following year. 
With the death of the latter "the pride, the sole hope of the 
family," as Randolph hopelessly phrases it, was taken away. 

Although plunged into a gloom which sometimes threat- 
ened to completely unbalance his mind, Randolph threw 
himself more than ever upon his adopted friend, a son in all 
but blood, young Dr. Dudley. He also took upon himself 
the responsibility of three other orphan boys, two of them 
the sons of an old deceased friend. It will readily be seen 
that with all his infirmities of mind and body, John Ran- 
dolph did far more than visit the widows and orphans in 
their affliction. 

Although when the fit was on him, the testimony of his 
neighbors was that Randolph delighted to terrify his slaves 
with his wild outbursts of sarcasm and passion, in his heart 
he felt their responsibility as of another large household. 
At the time of the British invasion of Virginia and the cap- 
ture of Washington, in 1814, his section of the country 
was flooded and famine threatened. In this season of dis- 
tress, he writes to his lifelong friend, Dr. Brockenbrough, 
unburdening himself of those feelings of responsibility as 
a slave-holder which so oppress him : 

"I have lived to feel that there are many things worse 
than poverty or death, those bugbears that terrify the great 
children of the world and sometimes drive them to eternal 
ruin. It requires, however, firmer nerves than mine to con- 
template without shrinking, even in prospect, the calamities 
which await this unhappy district of country — famine and 
all its concomitant horrors of disease and misery. To add 
to the picture, a late requisition of militia for Norfolk carries 



i 4 8 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

dismay and grief into the bosoms of many families in this 
country; and to have a just conception of the scene it is 
necessary to be on the spot. This is our court day, when 
the conscripts are to report themselves, and I purposely ab- 
stain from the sight of wretchedness that I cannot relieve. 
I have indeed enough of it at home. 

"The river did not abate in its rise until last night at sun- 
set. It has, after twenty-four hours, just retired within its 
banks. The ruin is tremendous. The granary of this part 
of the State is rifled of its stores. Where, then, are the for- 
mer furnishers of the great support of life to look for a 
supply? With a family of more than two hundred mouths 
looking up to me for food, I feel an awful charge on my 
hands. It is easy to rid myself of the burthen if I could 
shut my heart to the cry of humanity and the voice of duty. 
But in these poor slaves I have found my best and most 
faithful friends ; and I feel that it would be more difficult to 
abandon them to the cruel fate to which our laws would con- 
sign them, than to suffer with them." 

NO LOWER DOOR FOR RANDOLPH. 

Randolph's visit to England in quest of health in 1822, 
brought him in contact with many public characters. There 
were few of them but had heard of his eccentricities, but 
when they met him face to face were so captivated by his 
personality, that they were anxious to welcome him as an 
addition to any circle. 

One of the aristocracy took a special liking to him and 
as a signal mark of his favor obtained permission from the 
Lord Chancellor to introduce Mr. Randolph into the House 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 149 

of Lords by the private entrance and near the throne, in- 
stead of obliging him to force his way with the crowd at 
the common entrance. 

About the time that Mr. Randolph secured this privilege 
extended only to distinguished visitors, a friend of his ar- 
rived in London and the two were planning to attend a de- 
bate of extraordinary interest in the upper house of parlia- 
ment. The friend mentioned had secured from a marquis 
of his acquaintance a pass admitting two persons to the 
House of Lords to hear the debate. He carried it in tri- 
umph to Randolph, offering to share his good fortune. 

"Pray, sir," said Citizen Randolph, of Roanoke, "at what 
door do you intend to enter the house?" 

"At the lower door, of course," replied the friend, "where 
all strangers enter." 

"Not all strangers, if you please," said he, "for I shall 
enter at the private door near the throne." 

"Oh, my dear sir," returned Randolph's friend, "your 
privilege, I dare say, will answer on any common occasion ; 
but to-night the members of the House of Commons will 
entirely fill the space around the throne and no stranger, de- 
pend upon it, will be admitted there. So be wise and don't 
refuse this chance, or you will regret it." 

"What, sir," retorted he, "do you suppose I would con- 
sent to struggle with and push through the crowd of per- 
sons who, for two long hours, must fight their way in at the 
lower door? Oh, no, sir! I shall do no such thing. If 
I cannot enter as a gentleman commoner I go not at all." 

So the two separated, and the young and active friend, 
after fighting a good fight, finally forced the lower door 



, 5 o JOHN RANDOLPH. 

and, crushed and half suffocated, found himself in fortu- 
nate possession of standing room. But, casting his eye tow- 
ards the throne soon after his entrance, to his no small sur- 
prise and (he naively admits) his envy, he beheld Randolph 
of Roanoke in all his glory, walking in most leisurely and 
perfectly at home, alongside of Canning, Lord Castlereagh, 
Sir Robert Peel and many other distinguished members of 
the House of Commons. Some of these gentlemen even 
selected for him a prominent position, from which he could 
see and hear to the best advantage. 

Whatever others might do or advise, John Randolph of 
Roanoke would never consent to hide his light under a 
bushel or to go in at the lower door. He would be a Gentle- 
man Commoner or nothing. 

FAREWELL TO HENRY CLAY. 

Despite their political animosities, from the time of the 
duel, in which they both conducted themselves with gener- 
ous spirit, each had a real admiration for the other. 

A few days before his death, when it seemed that any min- 
ute might be his last, he was borne into the Senate chamber, 
and took a seat in the rear of Mr. Clay, who, at the time of 
his entrance, was addressing that body. 

"Raise me up," said Randolph, "I want to hear that voice 
again." 

When Mr. Clay had concluded his brief remarks, he turn- 
ed around to see who had made the request in such a touch- 
ing VI )\CC. 

Recognizing the dying man, he left his place to speak to 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 151 

him. As he approached, Randolph again said, "Raise me 
up." 

Mr. Clay offered his hand and with a sympathetic voice 
said, "Mr. Randolph, I hope you are better, sir." 

"No, sir," replied Randolph, "I am a dying man, and I 
came here expressly to have this interview with you." 

They grasped hands and parted forever, each understand- 
ing that soul to soul they were acknowledged friends. 

THE OLD MAN AND THE YOUNG MAN ELOQUENT. 

During the later years of his life Daniel Webster was often 
referred to as the "Old Man Eloquent," but that was after 
Patrick Henry had long been in his grave. The last burning 
words which fell from the lips of the old Revolutionary hero 
and orator, uttered shortly before his death, were an impas- 
sioned appeal to Virginia to beware how by pronouncing 
upon the validity of Federal laws she should invite the hor- 
rors of civil war and final subjugation by foreign powers. 
He painted to their imaginations Washington at the head of 
a numerous and well-appointed army inflicting upon them 
military execution. 

"And where," he asked, "are our resources to meet such a 
conflict? Where is the citizen of America who will dare to 
lift his hand against the father of his country?" 

A drunken man in the audience threw up his arm and ex- 
claimed that he dared to do it. 

"No," answered Patrick Henry, enfeebled with the last ills 
to which his flesh was to be heir, but still rising aloft in 
majesty and earnestness ; "no," he thundered, "you dare not 
do it ; in such a parricidal attempt, the steel would drop from 
your nerveless ami." 



i 5 2 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

The scene of these words was a rough stand erected near 
a tavern, which the grand jury of Charlotte County had just 
deserted to hear the noted orator ; the time, March, 1799, and 
the occasion, a pro-and-con discussion of the Alien and Sedi- 
tion laws, especially the right of Virginia to judge of their 
unconstitutionality. The whole country roundabout had 
turned out to honor the old-school patriot, who all but wept 
at the threatened disruption of the country which his mature 
manhood did so much to found. 

Learned divines and professors were there from Prince 
Edward College, as well as state and county politicians, the 
two candidates for Congress, college students, planters, 
tradesmen and a thousand and one men of all characters and 
grades of intelligence ; and curiosity, affection and admira- 
tion struggled in the breast of the meanest as the old man 
put all his failing strength into this appeal for harmony, al- 
beit it called for the placing in the background some of the 
historic and aristocratic pride of the Old Dominion. 

One of the candidates for Congress, Powhatan Boiling, 
was dressed in a red coat — a tall, large, proud Virginian ; just 
the kind of a man to voice a loud defi for his state and answer 
Patrick 1 lenry, old man though he was, for thus advising her 
to submit to oppression by the general government even in 
the interest of the Union. But Mr. Boiling was there to be 
seen and not heard. There were orators of not a little fame, 
besides, but they made no move to reply to Mr. Henry when 
he had concluded in this strain: "If I am asked what is to 
be done when a people feel themselves intolerably oppressed, 
my answer is ready — overturn the government. But do not, 
I beseech you, carry matters to this length without provoca- 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 153 

tion. Wait, at least, until some infringement is made upon 
your rights and which cannot otherwise be redressed ; for if 
ever you recur to another change, you may bid farewell for- 
ever to representative government. You can never exchange 
the present government but for a monarchy. If the admin- 
istration have done wrong, let us all go wrong together 
rather than split into factions which must destroy that Union 
upon which our existence hangs. Let us preserve our 
strength for the French, the English, the Germans, or who- 
ever else shall dare to invade our territory, and not exhaust 
it in civil commotions and intestine wars." 

As the orator concluded many strong men of Virginia 
wept, responsive both to the pathetic words and manner of 
their beloved father, and Patrick Henry was almost literally 
clasped in the arms of the crowd. 

The argument has been advanced pro; now from whom is 
the con to come? Not surely from that tall, slender, smooth- 
faced, light-haired effeminate-looking youth with the bright 
hazel eyes, dressed in buff and blue with fair-top boots. If 
you have frequented the roads between Roanoke and Bizarre, 
you can bear witness that he sits a horse as well as anybody 
in that part of the country, and that he has slaves and dogs 
at his beck. You know he is at the head of two large estates 
and is nervous and eccentric. Your neighbor at the Patrick 
Henry gathering tells you that this aristocratic Virginia boy 
is a candidate for Congress and has been put forth by those 
who have more than a surface knowledge of him to reply to 
the foremost orator of the day. He is actually upon his feet 
and tears also are in his hazel eyes and a quiver still upon his 



i 5 4 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

lips as he commences to speak. This, then, is John Randolph 
of Roanoke, about to make his maiden speech. 

Unlike Byron, the young Virginian was not obliged to wait 
the morrow's sun to find himself famous. The evident emo- 
tion playing over his mobile features disarmed the natural 
criticism of presumption on his part, and his first modest 
words expressing a regret that he was obliged to oppose the 
venerable and revered gentleman who had just concluded, 
went to hearts already softened. He then examined the posi- 
tion of his famous opponent calmly and logically, making- 
such a suggestive personal reference as this: "But the gen- 
tleman has taught me a very different lesson from that he is 
now disposed to enjoin on us. I fear that time has wrought 
its influence on him, as on all other men ; and that age makes 
him willing to endure what in former years he would have 
spurned with indignation. I have learned my first lessons in 
his school. He is the high-priest from whom I received the 
little wisdom my poor abilities were able to carry away from 
the droppings of the political sanctuary. He was the inspired 
statesman that taught me to be jealous of power, to w r atch its 
encroachments and to sound the alarm on the first movement 
of usurpation. 

"Inspired by his eloquent appeals — encouraged by his ex- 
ample — alarmed by the rapid strides of Federal usurpation, 
of which he had warned them — the legislature of Virginia 
has nobly stepped forth in defense of the rights of the states 
and interposed to arrest that encroachment and usurpation of 
power that threaten the destruction of the Republic." 

After speaking of the Alien laws as repugnant to the entire 
spirit of the constitution, which in its very essence was the 



JOHN RANDOLPH. I55 

proffer of freedom and protection to all, he boldly exclaimed 
to this effect : "And what is that other law which so fully 
meets the approbation of my venerable friend? It is a law 
that makes it an act of sedition, punishable by fine and im- 
prisonment, to utter or write a sentiment that any prejudiced 
judge or juror may think proper to construe into disrespect 
to the President of the United States. Do you understand 
me? I dare proclaim to the people of Charlotte my opinion 
to be that John Adams, so-called President, is a weak-minded 
man, vain, jealous and vindictive; that influenced by evil 
passions and prejudices, and goaded on by wicked counsel, 
he has been striving to force the country into a war with our 
best friend and ally. I say that I dare repeat this before the 
people of Charlotte and avow it as my opinion. But let me 
write it down and print it as a warning to my countrymen. 
What then? / subject myself to an indictment for sedition. 
I make myself liable to be dragged away from my home and 
friends and to be put on trial in some distant Federal court, 
before a judge who receives his appointment from the man 
that seeks my condemnation, and to be tried by a prejudiced 
jury, who have been gathered from remote parts of the coun- 
try, strangers to me and anything but my peers — and have 
been packed by the minions of power for my destruction !" 

It is but justice to the fame of Mr. Randolph, secured at 
a bound, to say that no verbatim report of his maiden speech, 
his noted reply to Patrick Henry, has ever come down to us. 
One of his neighbors, however, who has enjoyed the advan- 
tage, moreover, of comparing notes with several who heard 
the oration, has undoubtedly brought down the substance of 
it, if not the words. The speech lasted three hours, and the 



156 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

audience were simply blinded and spell-bound by the dazzling 
outburst of brilliant thoughts clad in words of light. 

When Randolph concluded, an old planter, turning to his 
neighboi, exclaimed, "He's no bug-eater, I tell you." 

Mr. Henry said to a by-stander: "I haven't seen the little 
dog before, since he was at school ; he was a great atheist 
then." He made no reply to the speech, but, approaching 
Mr. Randolph, took him by the hand and said: "Young 
man, you call me father ; then, my son, I have something to 
say unto you (holding both his hands). Keep justice, keep 
truth, and you will live to think differently." 

They dined together, and Randolph revered his venerable 
friend more than ever and his memory, which was all that 
remained in a few weeks from that eventful day, was one of 
the sacred things of his after life. 

UPHOLDING HIS CONGRESSIONAL DIGNITY. 

Mr. Randolph's peculiar temperament made him pecul- 
iarly sensitive to anything which he could construe into a 
personal affront. It was his misfortune, as not a little of his 
time in Congress was occupied in attempting to bring others 
to terms or in endeavoring to smooth over matters himself. 
Had Ik- been less suspicious, had he been better able to over- 
look frictions which would have been scarcely noticed by 
those of a more obtuse and, perhaps, balanced a temperament 
he would have had more time to devote to an undisturbed 
consideration of stale affairs. 

Within a month from the time he commenced his first term 
of service in Congress he found in a small personal episode 
an occasion by which he kept the President, Congress and 
the country at large in a considerable uproar for a period of 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 157 

some two weeks. Was a member of Congress to be insulted, 
set upon and personally abused as a private citizen for words 
which he had spoken in debate on the floor of the House? 
Was honest opposition to administrative measures to be over- 
awed by the military? There is little doubt by that a cer- 
tain personal experience of the night of January 10, 1800, so 
keenly worked upon his sense of personal injury as to make 
him thoroughly convinced that the liberties of Republican 
congressmen were in grave danger at the hands of the mili- 
tary hirelings of the Federal administration. 

Three days before the episode in question a resolution had 
been offered by a leading Republican to repeal the act in- 
creasing the United States Army, since all danger of war 
with France had passed. In the course of the debate upon 
the resolution Mr. Randolph had made his first speech in 
Congress, taking occasion to say that "the people of the 
United States ought not to depend for their safety on the 
soldiers enlisted under the laws, the repeal of which was the 
object of the resolution," and applied to them the epithet of 
"ragamuffins." He had also declared that standing or mer- 
cenary armies were inconsistent with the spirit of our consti- 
tution or the genius of a free people. General Lee, who had 
been second in command to the lamented Washington in the 
Revolutionary War, had taken exceptions to the word mer- 
cenary as applied to any troops except those hired to defend 
another country than their own. 

In reply Randolph had contended that there was no ety- 
mology which would warrant his construction ; that the term 
was derived from a Latin word which signified wages, but 
should be applied to such men (whether foreigners or other- 



i 5 8 JOHN . ANDOLPH. 

wise) who made the art military a profession or trade; that 
it was properly expressive o! a standing army who served for 
wages and by contract, in contradistinction to a militia, or 
patriotic army, in which each ;ontributed his share to the 
public safety and who received pay only when in actual ser- 
vice, in order that the poorer citizen might perform his mili- 
tary duty. 

It certainly was no more than natural that those in any 
way connected with the standing army of the United States 
should object to being classified as ragamuffins and mercena- 
ries. Even in the infancy of the Republic both officers and 
men took great pride in their branch of the public service and 
resented any criticism, especially from a civilian. But from 
such a boyish-looking civilian ; and he to say ragamuffin an'd 
mercenary ! 

At any rate, although the motion to repeal the act increas- 
ing the standing army had failed of passage by a large ma- 
jority, on the evening after its defeat, Randolph and three of 
his friends were attending a theater. The main play was "The 
Stranger," and the after-piece "Bluebeard." In the course of 
the evening a party of army officers, so Randolph charges, 
entered the box where he was and two of them — Captain 
McKnight and Lieutenant Reynolds — made themselves espe- 
cially obnoxious. With the explanation that Messrs. Van 
Rensselaer, Christie and Macon were the friends of the 
young Virginia congressman, we let Mr. Randolph make 
these specific charges, which he laid before the President and 
House of Representatives as evidences of an unconstitu- 
tional interference with the privileges of congressional de- 
bate ; "Exclusive of repeated assertions as to what passed in 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 159 

the House of Representatives during the dehate of the pre- 
cding day, and a frequent repetition of some words which 
fell from me during that discussion, in a manner so marked 
as to leave no doubt on my mind, or that of Messrs. Van 
Rensselaer, Christie or Macon, of their intention to insult 
me personally ; finding me determined to take no notice of 
their words, they adopted a conduct which placed their de- 
signs beyond every possibility of doubt, and which they 
probably conceived to be calculated to force me into their 
measures. 

"Mr. Christie had left his seat between me and the parti- 
tion of the box ; after which Mr. Van Rensselaer, who sat on 
the other side of me, laid clown, so as to occupy a more than 
ordinary portion of room, and occasioned my removal to a 
part of Mr. Christie's former seat, leaving a very small va- 
cancy between myself and the partition. Into this Lieu- 
tenant Reynolds suddenly, and without requesting or giving 
time 'for room to be made for him, dropped with such vio- 
lence as to bring our hips into contact. The shock was suffi- 
cient to occasion a slight degree of pain on my part, and for 
which it is probable he would in some degree have apolo- 
gized, had not the act been intentional. Just before I left the 
box, one of them, I believe McKnight, gave me a sudden and 
violent pull by the cape of my coat. Upon my demanding 
who it was (this was the first instance in which I noticed 
their proceedings) no answer was given. I then added that 
I had long perceived an intention to insult me, and that the 
person offering it was a puppy. No reply that I heard was 
made." 

These and other facts tending to the same point came be- 



ie ,o JOHN RANDOLPH. 

fore the President and a special committee of investigation. 
The latter also took the testimony of the two army officers 
most deeply implicated, one of whom said that from Mr. 
Randolph's "youthful appearance and dress, I had no idea of 
his being a member of the House of Representatives." The 
upshot of the agitation was that when the resolutions pre- 
sented by the committee were considered by the House, that 
body refused to accept their resolution "that sufficient cause 
does not appear for the interposition of the House, on the 
ground of a breach of its privileges." 

But although Randolph's position had been sustained in 
principle both by the President and the House of Repre- 
sentatives, all further action was ruled out by the speaker ; 
and, although at first glance this might appear a trivial per- 
sonal matter whish few men in the world would have so 
magnified as Mr. Randolph, there was, after all, a large ques- 
tion involved, and perhaps no one then serving in Congress 
was so abundantly able to stir up a hornet's nest and sting 
the public and public men into an attentive attitude as this 
young firebrand from Virginia. 

SOUTHERN TO THE CORE. 

Randolph's southern proclivities were often manifest in so 
violent a manner as to be the source of not a little amusement 
to his friends. It is well known that he had periods when 
his entire being seemed to be in a state of electrical discharge, 
and during these periods it required only the slightest excuse 
to draw a shock from him. 

One of his Richmond friends tells an illustrative story to 
the effect that one day he was passing along the street when 
Mr. Randolph hailed him in a loud tone of voice and asked if 



JOHN RANDOLPH. ,61 

he (the friend) knew of a good ship in the James River in 
which he (Randolph) could get a passage for England. Mr. 
Randolph said he had been sick with a fever for forty days 
and his physician had ordered him to England. 

The friend told the statesman from Roanoke that there 
were no ships on the James River fit for his accommodation 
and that he had better go to New York and sail from that 
port. 

"Do you think," shouted Randolph, "that I would give my 
money to those who are ready to make my negroes cut my 
throat? If I cannot go to England from a Southern port I 
will not go at all !" 

After thinking the matter over a little, the friend remem- 
bered a boat in the river that might do and told him so. Ran- 
dolph asked the name of the boat and was informed it was 
the "Henry Clay." 

He threw up his arms and exclaimed, "Henry Clay! No, 
sir ! I will never step on the planks of a ship by that name !" 

About two years from that time Mr. Randolph went to 
England, not, it is true, on board the "Henry Clay," albeit 
he did ship from the port of New York. 

A fellow-passenger, noting that he had a great box of 
books with him, asked why he had brought so many. 

"I want to have them bound in England, sir," he replied, 
severely. 

"Bound in England!" the other exclaimed, laughing. 
"Why did you not send them to New York or Boston, where 
you can get them done cheaper?" 

"What, sir," replied Randolph, more sharply. "Patronize 
some of our Yankee taskmasters ; those patriotic gentry, who 



i6* JOHN RANDOLPH. 

have caused such a heavy duty to be imposed on foreign 
books. Never, sir, never ! I will neither wear what they 
make, nor eat what they raise, so long as my tobacco crop 
will enable me to get supplies from old England ; and I shall 
employ John Bull to bind my books until the time arrives 
when they can be properly done south of Mason and Dixon's 
line." 

DEFIANT RETIREMENT FROM CONGRESS. 

With all his frail physique, it is doubtful whether John 
Randolph knew the meaning of the fear of man. An illus- 
tration of this exemption is given in his congressional cam- 
paign of 1813, when, after a service of fourteen years, he was 
defeated by the administration leader, John W. Eppes. They 
were friends in youth and rival leaders in Congress, the can- 
vass of 18 1 3 being especially animated. 

In Buckingham Mr. Randolph, who had become unpopular 
on account of his opposition to the war with England, was 
threatened with personal violence if he attempted to address 
the people. Some of his supporters advised him against the 
attempt. 

"You know very little of me," said he, "or you would not 
give such advice." 

Posters were accordingly put out that he would address 
the people, and a large crowd gathered, the outskirts being 
black with sullen faces. 

Mr. Randolph, mounting the hustings, commenced: "I 
understand that I am to be insulted to-day if I attempt to ad- 
dress the people — that a mob is prepared to lay its rude hands 
upon me and drag me from these hustings, for daring to ex- 
ercise the right of a freeman." Then fixing his keen eyes on 



JOHN RANDOLPH. ,63 

the dark fringe of the crowd and shaking that long, terrify- 
ing forefinger at the malcontents, he continued: "My Bible 
teaches me that the fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom, 
but that the fear of man is the consummation of folly." He 
then proceeded to address that part of the audience which 
had come to listen to him. But notwithstanding his elo- 
quence and the fact that he was strong in the Charlotte dis- 
trict, the outside counties retired him from public life. 

Shortly before the election his residence at Bizarre was 
burned, and he lost, as he says, "a valuable collection of 
books — a whole body of infidelity, the Encyclopedia of Dide- 
rot and D'Alembert, Voltaire's works (seventy volumes), 
Rousseau (thirteen quartos), Hume, etc., etc." He there- 
upon removed to his Roanoke estate, forty miles south, and 
retired to a solitude, almost unbroken save for the presence 
of young Dudley, his adopted relative, and the letters which 
he received from his friends, Dr. John Brockenbrough and 
Francis S. Key. 

In his correspondence from Roanoke he often gave vent to 
his bitter feelings against politicians and his utter disgust of 
public life and its surroundings, as witness : "I had taken so 
strong a disgust against public business, conducted as it has 
been for years past, that I doubt my fitness for the situation 
from which I have been dismissed. The House of R. was as 
odious to me as ever school-room was to a truant boy. To be 
under the dominion of such wretches as (with a few excep- 
tions) composed the majority, was intolerably irksome to my 
feelings ; and, although my present situation is far from en- 
viable, I feel the value of the exchange. To-day (May 22), 
for the first time, we have warm weather ; and as I enjoy the 



164 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

breeze in my cool cabin, where there is scarce a fly to be 
seen, I think with loathing of that compound of villainous 
smells which at all times inhale through the H. of R., but 
which in a summer session are absolutely pestilential." 

It was here, from the solitude of Roanoke, that Randolph 
gave frequent vent to his longings for a religious life and his 
perception of his own shortcomings, and the conflict within 
him to suppress his bitterness — to be charitable and forgiv- 
ing and yet live among men, with all their deceit and unchar- 
itableness — was pitiful in the extreme. And yet, after mov- 
ing in a circle, feeling the necessity for a new life, and having 
the longing for it, his nervous, rebellious nature would re- 
assert itself, his unworthiness would again come uppermost 
and despair would take the place of hope ; then he would 
•canvass his world and find only three really good happy men 
in it— Bishop Meade, of Virginia ; Dr. Moses Hogue, presi- 
dent of Hampden Sydney College, and Francis S. Key. 

"I am more and more convinced," he cries, "that, with a 
few exceptions, this world of ours is a vast mad-house. The 
only men I ever knew well, ever approached closely, whom I 
did not discover to be unhappy, are sincere believers of the 
Gospel and conform their lives, as far as the nature of man 
can permit, to its precepts. There are only three of them." 
According to his own statement, this conflict within him 
lasted for nine long years before he was able conscientiously 
to announce his conversion to his friends. 

Randolph's account of his conversion. 

Tn writing to his old friend, Dr. Brockenbrough, Randolph 
evidently refers to a previous letter in which he has inti- 
mated a change of heart and convictions in matters relig- 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 165 

ious, when he says, under date of September 25, 1822: 
"Your imputing such sentiments to a heated imagination 
does not surprise me, who have been bred in the school of 
Hobbs, and Bayle and Shaftesbury, and Bolingbroke, and 
Hume, and Voltaire, and Gibbon; who have cultivated the 
skeptical philosophy from my vainglorious boyhood — I might 
almost say childhood — and who have felt all that unutterable 
disgust which hypocrisy and cant and fanaticism never fail 
to excite in men of education and refinement, superadded to 
our natural repugnance to Christianity. I am not even now 
Insensible to this impression ; but as the excesses of her 
friends (real or pretended) can never alienate the votary of 
liberty from a free form of government and enlist him under 
the banners of despotism, so neither can the cant of fanati- 
cism, or hypocrisy, or of both, disgust the pious with true 
religion. 

"Mine has been no sudden change of opinion. I can refer 
to a record, showing, on my part, a desire of more than nine 
years' standing to partake of the Sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper ; although for two and twenty years preceding my 
feet had never crossed the threshold of the house of prayer. 
This desire I was restrained from indulging by the fear of 
eating and drinking unrighteously. And although that fear 
hath been cast out by perfect love, I have never yet gone to 
the altar, neither have I been present at the performance of 
divine service, unless indeed I may so call my reading the 
liturgy of our church and some chapters of the Bible to my 
poor negroes on Sundays. Such passages as I think require 
it, and which I feel competent to explain, I comment upon — 
enforcing as far as possible, and dwelling upon those texts 



166 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

especially that enjoin the indispensable accompaniment of a 
good life as the touchstone of the true faith. The Sermon 
from the Mount and the Evangelists generally ; the Epistle of 
Paul to the Ephesians, chap, vi ; the General Epistle of 
James and the First Epistle of John ; these are my chief texts. 

"The consummation of my conversion — I use the word in 
its stricted sense — is owing to a variety of causes, but chiefly 
to the conviction, unwillingly forced upon me, that the very 
few friends which an unprosperous life (the fruit of an un- 
governable temper) had left me were daily losing their hold 
upon me, in a firmer grasp of ambition, avarice or sensuality. 
I am not sure that, to complete the anti-climax, avarice 
should not have been last ; for, although in'some of its effects, 
debauchery be more disgusting than avarice, yet as it.regards 
the unhappy victim, this last is more to be dreaded. Dissi- 
pation, as well as power or prosperity, hardens the heart ; 
but avarice deadens it to every feeling but the thirst for 
riches. 

"Avarice alone could have produced the slave-trade ; ava- 
rice alone can drive, as it does drive, this infernal traffic, and 
the wretched victims of it, like so many post-horses, whipped 
to death in a mail-coach. Ambition has its reward in the 
pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war ; but where are 
the trophies of avarice? — the handcuff, the menacle and the 
blood-stained cowhide ?" 

MR. BENTON'S OPINION OF RANDOLPH. 

Tt is impossible to conceive two men more diametrical in 
their natures than Senator Benton, the methodical, statistical, 
full-blooded statesman from Missouri, and the scintillating 
human aberration, known as Randolph of Roanoke. 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 167 

Upon one occasion Mr. Benton said that his opinion was 
fixed that Mr. Randolph had occasional temporary aberra- 
tions of mind ; "and during such periods he would do and say 
strange things, but always in his own way — not only method 
but genius in his fantasies ; nothing to bespeak a bad heart ; 
only exaltation and excitement." 

"The most brilliant talks," continued he, "that I ever heard 
from him came forth on such occasions — a flow for hours 
(at one time seven hours) of copious wit and classic allusion 
— a perfect scattering of the diamonds of the mind." 

He tells us that he once sounded Mr. Randolph to discover 
what he thought of his own case. He heard him repeating 
those lines of Johnson on "Senility and Imbecility" — 

"In life's last scenes what prodigies surprise, 
Fears of the brave and follies of the wise ; 
From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, 
And Swift expires, a driveller and a show." 
"Mr. Randolph," said Mr. Benton, "I have several times 
heard you repeat those lines as if they could have an applica- 
tion to yourself, while no person can have less reason to fear 
the fate of Swift." 

"I have lived in dread of insanity," replied Mr. Randolph. 

ONE TOO MUCH. 

Randolph's ready wit was seldom caught napping, but 
when it was no man could feel greater humiliation, not to 
say anger. 

Upon one occasion a lady ot his acquaintance, the metal of 
whose repartee he had had occasion to test, met him at the 
house of a mutual friend. She had just returned from at- 



,68 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

tending an Episcopal church in a neighboring town, and Mr. 
Randolph set out at once to hector her over the circumstance. 
He claimed that she should patronize home industries — 
should have attended the Methodist meeting-house in her 
neighborhood. Continuing, he declaimed against the folly of 
attempting to maintain an Episcopal church in the United 
States, an institution so contrary to the independent spirit of 
the country. 

The lady, who could see that he was simply talking to vex 
her, suddenly turned the tables on him by exclaiming, "I 
suppose, then, Mr. Randolph, that you must be a Methodist !" 

OPINION AS TO HIS BEST SPEECH. 

One of Mr. Randolph's old constituents was once asked 
which speech he considered the best. He replied the one he 
made at Charlotte court-house, soon after the Virginia con- 
vention of 1829. In this address he spoke of his public ser- 
vice, and is reported to have used the following language: 
"I appear here to take my leave of you for the last time. Now 
what shall I say? Twenty-eight years ago you took me by 
the hand, when a beardless boy, and handed me to Congress. 
T have served you in a public capacity ever since. That 1 
have committed errors I readily believe, being a descendant 
of Adam, and full of bruises and putrifying sores, from the 
crown of my head to the soles of my feet. People of Char- 
lotte ! which of you is without sin ?" 

A voice in the crowd exclaimed, "Gracious God! what 

preaching." 

Randolph's last day on earth. 

Eor three years Mr. Randolph had been gradually failing 
with consumption, the disease having been greatly aggra- 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 169 

vated by his voyage to Russia, and in April started toward 
Philadelphia, intending to sail for England in the May 
packet. On the way thither he stopped at Washington and 
was reconciled to his old-time enemy Henry Clay. He finally 
arrived in Philadelphia during a heavy storm, to which he 
was unfortunately exposed before he was able to secure 
lodgings. At length, with his faithful colored servant John, 
he found shelter at the City Hotel, No. 41 North Third 
Street. 

As Mr. Randolph was now a very sick man, Dr. Joseph 
Parish, a Quaker physician, was summoned at once and at- 
tended him the last few days of his life. We pass over the 
details of all the long sad hours except those which covered 
his last day, as they have been recorded for us by his pains- 
taking friend and biographer, Hugh A. Garland, in early life 
a resident of the Roanoke district and in whose hands many 
of Randolph's most intimate friends placed their correspond- 
ence with the departed and all the treasures of their well- 
stored memories. Mr. Garland's account of the circum- 
stances attending his death is full of interest because so ex- 
plicit. 

The day on which Randolph died Dr. Parish received an 
early and an urgent message to visit him. Several persons 
were in the room, but soon left it, except his servant John, 
who was much affected at the sight of his dying master. 

The Doctor remarked to him, "I have seen your master 
very low before and he revived, and perhaps he will again." 

"John knows better than that, sir," earnestly replied Ran- 
dolph. Then looking at the Doctor with great intensity, said 
in a distinct manner, "I confirm every disposition in my will, 



i-o JOHN RANDOLPH. 

especially that respecting my slaves, whom I have manu- 
mitted, and for whom I have made provision." 

"I am rejoiced to hear such a declaration from you, sir," 
replied the Doctor, and soon after proposed to leave him for 
a short time to attend to another patient. 

"You must not go," was the reply ; "you cannot, you shall 
not leave me. John, take care that the Dotor does not leave 
the room." 

John locked the door, and reported, "Master, I have locked 
the door and got the key in my pocket ; the Doctor can't go 
now." 

Randolph seemed excited, and exclaimed, "If you do go, 
you need not return !" 

The Doctor appealed to him as to the propriety of such an 
order, inasmuch as he was only desirous of discharging his 
duty to another patient. His manner instantly changed, and 
he said, "I retract that expression." Soon afterward he re- 
peated, even more expressively, "I retract that expression." 

The Doctor now said that he understood the subject of his 
communication and presumed the will would explain itself 
fully. 

Randolph replied, "No, you don't understand it; I know 
you don't. Our laws are extremely particular on the subject 
of slaves — a will may manumit them, but provision for their 
subsequent support requires that a declaration be made in the 
presence of a white witness; and it is requisite that the wit- 
ness, after hearing the declaration, should continue with the. 
party and never lose sight of him, until he is gone or dead. 
You are a good witness for John. You see the propriety and 
importance of your remaining with me. Your patients must 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 171 

make allowance for your situation. John told me this morn- 
ing, 'Master, you are dying.' " 

The Doctor spoke with entire candor, and replied that it 
was rather a matter of surprise that he had lasted so long. 

Randolph now made his preparations to die. He directed 
John to bring him his father's breast button. He then direct- 
ed him to place it in the bosom of his shirt. It was an old- 
fashioned, large-sized gold stud. John placed it in the button 
hole of the shirt bosom, but to fix it completely required a 
hole on the opposite side. "Get a knife," said he, "and cut 
one." A napkin was called for and placed by John over his 
breast. 

For a short time Randolph lay perfectly quiet with his 
eyes closed, but suddenly roused up and exclaimed, "Re- 
morse! Remorse!" The words were thrice repeated, the 
last time at the top of his voice with great agitation. He then 
cried out, "Let me see the word ! Get a dictionary ! Let me 
see the word !" 

"There is none in the room, sir." 

"Write it down then. Let me see the word !" 

The Doctor picked up one of his cards on which was 
"Randolph of Roanoke." "Shall I write it on this card?" 

"Yes, nothing more proper." 

The word remorse was then written in pencil. He took the 
card in a hurried manner and fastened his eyes on it with 
great intensity. 

"Write it on the back," he exclaimed. It was so done, and 
the card handed him again. He was extremely agitated. 
"Remorse! You have no idea what it is. You can form no 
idea of it whatever. It has contributed to bring me to my 



]- 2 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

present situation. Bui J have looked to the Lord Jesus 
Christ and I hope I have obtained pardon. Now let John 
take your pencil and draw a line under the word;" which 
was accordingly done. 

"What am I to do with the card?" inquired the Doctor. 

"Put it in your pocket — take care of it — when I am dead 
look at it." 

( )ther witnesses were now called in, to witness the declara- 
tion he had to make— four in all, including the son of Dr. 
Parish and the proprietor of the hotel. They stood in a semi- 
circle in front of the bed, John close by the side of the dying 
man, who was propped up with pillows so that he sat up 
nearly erect. Being extremely sensitive to cold, he had a 
blanket over his head and shoulders ; and he directed John to 
place his hat on, over the blanket, which aided in keeping it 
close to his head. 

Randolph now rallied all the expiring energies of mind 
and body to this last effort. "His whole soul," says Dr. 
Parish, "seemed concentrated in the act. His eves flashed 
feeling and intelligence. Pointing towards us with his long 
index finger, he thus addressed us: 'I confirm all the direc- 
tions in my will respecting my slaves and direct them to be 
enforced, particularly in regard to a provision for their sup- 
port.' And then raising his arm as high as he could, he 
brought it down with open hand on the shoulder of his 
favorite John, who stood close by his side with a countenance 
full of sorrow, and added, 'especially for this man.' He then 
asked each of the witnesses whether they understood him." 

Dr. Parish explained to the witnesses what Mr. Randolph 
had said to him regarding the Virginia laws on manumission 



JOHN RANDOLPH. i — 

and appealed to the dying man whether he had stated his re- 
marks correctly. Being assured that he had, the Doctor was 
gracefully dismissed and the other witnesses asked to remain 
until the end. That was only two hours away; and having 
kept his faculties upon the task which had now been accom- 
plished, his strong will loosened its hold and his mind and 
imagination wandered amid home scenes and friends, until 
with his other faculties, which we call Soul, they passed into 
the unknown. 



: 7 4 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

THE STORY OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 

FOR A SCHOOL OR CLUB PROGRAMME. 

Each numbered paragraph is to be given to a pupil or 
member to read, or to recite, in a clear, distinct tone. 

If the school or club is small, each person may take 
three or four paragraphs, but should not be required to 
recite them in succession. 

i. John Randolph '"of Roanoke," was born at Cawsons, Virgin- 
ia, June 2, 1773. 

2. He was the seventh in descent from Pocahontas, by her mar- 
riage with John Rolfe. 

3. His father, Richard Randolph, died two years after the birth 
of his son John. 

4. His mother was a woman of great mental gifts and of rare 
beauty of person, to which were added a captivating graciousness of 
manner, and a voice of wonderful sweetness and power. 

5. John Randolph always spoke of her in after life with the great- 
est tenderness and love. From her he learned the art of reciting. 
He would memorize the most expressive and important portions of 
the speeches and orations of the great masters of eloquence, and then 
declaim them under her guidance. 

6. He thus acquired the power of tone, which he afterwards was 
enabled to use with such tremendous effect. 

7. His mother married St. George Tucker who took care of his 
step-son with great affection and fidelity. 

8. He went to the grammar school connected with William and 
Mary College in his twelfth year, and in the autumn of 17.S7 attended 
Princeton College. In June, 1788, he was a student for a short time 
at Columbia College, New York City. 

o. During this year, 1788, his mother died, greatly lamented by 
her son who had inherited her singular beauty of face and high intel- 
lectual powers. 

10. He studied law in Philadelphia with his second cousin, Ed- 
mund Randolph, the distinguished Attorney-General. He also gave 
attention to political debates and the study of anatomy and physiology. 

11. He passed through a period of skepticism, mainly through 
the influence of the French Revolution upon his impressible mind, 
but very soon became a firm believer again in the religious truths 
taught him by his mother. 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 175 

12. He also trampled under his feet the temptations which to 
some extent had gained the mastery over him through his youthful 
associations and his ardent, emotionable nature. 

13. Randolph's first speech was made in reply to Patrick Henry 
in 1799, in defense of the Virginia resolutions against the Alien and 
Sedition Acts. 

14. It was a bold and remarkable effort, and at once concentrat- 
ed attention upon the youthful orator. 

15. In 1789 Randolph was elected to Congress, and in his first 
speech he advocated a resolution to diminish the army. 

16. In this speech he referred to "Standing or Mercenary Ar- 
mies," claiming that all who made war a profession were "mercen- 
ary." This language gave great offense to all the military men of 
the country. 

17. By his commanding abilities he became the leader of his 
party, then termed "Republican," in the House of Representatives. 

18. He was the implacable foe of all forms of corruption. The 
unquestioned honesty of his character, his fervid, poetic eloquence, 
his biting sarcasm, and ready wit made him a most formidable adver- 
sary. 

19. He exposed the great Yazoo fraud in which so many promi- 
nent characters were implicated. 

20. His moral courage was sublime. It led him to acts of appar- 
ent inconsistency in his political life. The measures he advocated at 
one time he would afterwards resolutely oppose. 

21. But the changed conditions demanded of him as a coura- 
geous man, loyal to his convictions, a change of action. 

22. He became "the pride of Virginia" by his devotion to her in- 
terests, and his intrepid daring in fighting every public wrong. 

23. He used all the resources of his eloquence, his powers of 
scathing ridicule his pungent wit to prevent the war of 1812. 

24. He became the acknowledged head of the "State Rights" 
party in opposition to the centralization of power in the Federal Gov- 
ernment. 

25. He had a profound hatred of slavery, and would have freed 
his own slaves before his death had it not been for legal and other dif- 
ficulties which stood in the way. 

26. But he did not believe in the principle of the Missouri Com- 
promise, and termed the northern supporters of that measure "dough- 
faces," an appellation which has become historic. 

27. His animosity became aroused against Henry Clay during 
the angry debate on the question of the war with England in 1812. 

28. Mr. Clay challenged Randolph for using insulting language, 
and a duel was soon afterwards fought, in which although shot at by 
Mr. Clay, Randolph fired his pistol in the air. 



176 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

29. It is a great pity that history has to record such a meeting 
between two such great men. It is gratifying to know that Mr. Ran- 
dolph's conduct on the occasion elicited the warm admiration of Mr. 
Clay. 

30. Randolph was elected to the Senate of the United States in 
December, 1824, and served two years. He was defeated for the po- 
sition at the next election. 

31. In 1830 he was appointed minister to Russia. But his fail- 
ing health and the prevalence of the cholera in Europe prevented a 
long stay at the Russian Court. 

32. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of Vir- 
ginia in 172Q, and charmed the assembly by his eloquence. 

33. He died of consumption in Philadelphia, May 23, 1833. His 
remains were removed to Roanoke, Virginia, and laid to rest amid 
venerable trees in a picturesque dell. 

34. In his personal appearance he presented a tall and slender 
frame, long, bony fingers, a thin and beardless face full of wrinkles, 
and dark, brilliant eyes. 

35. He had a graceful bow, in ordinary speaking, a lofty bearing 
and a voice wonderfully penetrating and yet sweet and melodious as 
a woman's. "His very whisper could be distinguished above the 
tones of ordinary men." 

36. His speeches were "conclusive in argument, original in con- 
ception, felicitous in illustration, forcible in language, and faultless 
in delivery." 

37. "His eye, his forefinger, and his foot were the members used 
in gesticulation. In impressing a solemn truth, a warning or a prop- 
osition to which he wished to call particularly the attention of his au- 
dience, he could use his foot with singular and thrilling effect." 

38. "The ring of the slight patting of his foot was in perfect ac- 
cord with the clear, musical intonations of that voice, which belonged 
only to Mr. Randolph." 

3Q. "Mr. Randolph appeared among men as a towering oak 
among the undergrowth of the forest." 

40. One of his physicians said "Mr. Randolph never had an hour 
of good health, nor was he ever free from physical suffering." 

41. "A great deal of his suffering was of that class of diseases 
which are mitigated by Stimuli. These he used freely until they 
brought his system into a terrible state of mental excitement and 
physical debility." 

42. It would have been an incalculable blessing if he could have 
had the scientific and successful treatment, which has been given in 
our day to so many who have been afflicted with a similar disease. 

43. "No statesman ever looked into or predicted the future of 
any governmental policy with more accuracy than did Mr. Randolph." 



JOHN RANDOLPH, 177 

44. "Mr.RandoIph was in every respect a great man. As a states- 
man he had no superior, and but few equals. As a philosopher and 
student of history he stood in the foremost ranks, while as an orator, 
he would compare with any that the nineteenth century has produced." 



PROGRAMME FOR A JOHN RANDOLPH EVENING. 

1. Music — Instrumental. 

2. Essay — John Randolph's Early Life. 

3. Essay — John Randolph's Eirs* Speech in opposition to Patrick 
Henry. 

4. Music — Columbia the Gem of the Ocean. 

5. Discussion — John Randolph as an Orator; John Randolph's 
Sarcasm. 

6. Essay — The Contradictions in John Randolph's Character. 

7. Music — Dixie. 

8. Essay — The Virginia Convention, 

9. Recitation — From Speeches of John Randolph. 
10. Music — America. 



QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW. 

What is said of the Randolphs of Virginia? Of Turkey Island? 
Of 1 1 Hlliani Randolph ' s marriage, etc. ? Of his descendants ? ( If Rich- 
ard Randolph ? C f his descendants ? ( [f the birth of John Randolph ? 

1 >f 'the influence of his mother.' What does John Randolph say oj 
it? What did he read? Of the flight of his mother? Of his early 
schooling? Of his residence at Princeton? Of his attendance at Col- 
umbia College? Of his indiscriminate reading? What does he say of 
himself? 

What is said of Theodorick Bland? Of Randolph in Phila- 
delphia? Of his attitude towards fejferson and Paine? Of his com- 
panions in Philadelphia? Of Randolph' 's majority? Of the influ- 
ence upon him? Of the death of his brother? Of the action of the Fed- 
eralist party ? Of the attitude of Virginia? Of Kentucky? Of Pat- 
rick Henry? Of Randolph' s opposition to Henry? Of Randolph's pub- 
lic services? Of the Continental Congress? Of the old Constitution? 
Of the meaning of its emphatic language? Of the effect of the amend- 
ments ? Of the rise of secession? Of the nature of the two secessions? 
Of the reservation of Virginia? 

Of the preamble of the Constitution ? Of the making of the Con- 
stitution by the people ? Of Congressional districts ? Of threats of se- 
cession at different periods ? Of the Constitution? Of Randolph' s ac- 
quaintance with it? Of the Louisiana purchase ? Ofjosiah Quincy's 



178 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

Statement? Of Randolph and the embargo? What are the main 
points in Randolph' s speech against the embargo? What is said of 
Macon.' What is said of his relation to Jefferson? Of his labors on 
the Ways and Means Committees? Of his views of the business of Con- ■ 
gross/ Of schemes of spending money, etc.? 

Of his opinion of the standing army in 1800? Of the militia? Of 
his declarations in 1863 ? Of the navy? What is said of Jefferson' s 
scheme and Randolph ' s view of it? II 'hat is the substance of his speech 
in 1810? How did he regard the war of 1812, etc. ? II 'hat did he say 
on Dec. 9, 1812? On Jan. 16, 18 16? On foreign war, etc.? On March 
5, 1806? 

What did Randolph say of the Judiciary ? What amendment did 
he propose? What did he say of corruption ? 0f( 'aucus? Of provid- 
ing men with Federal offices? When was he beaten for Congress? 
What is said of the Yazoo frauds? 

What was Randolph' s attitude towards Jefferson? Towards 
Madison and Monroe? What does he say of the ins and outs. 

What is said of the Bank question ? ( If Henry ( 'lay ? ( f Federal 
agency and internal improvements .' Of Randolph 's opposition? Of 
Randolph and the tariff of 18 16? Of Randolph and Webster? Of 
Randolph and South America? Of Randolph and slavery? Of Ran- 
dolph and the Compromise ? < f Randolph and ( far and Adams? Of 
the duel between Randolph and Clay? 

Of Randolph's mission to Russia? 

What was the tenor of Randolph' s letter to the Hartford Con- 
vention ? 1 1 'hen and n 'here did he die ? 

What can you say of the complexity of his character. .' What is 
supposed to be the principle cause of his evil propensities? Compare 
Ri in do l/> h v ■ ith ( \ 1 h • in . 

J I 'hat is said of Randolph and ( 'alvin ? ( \f Randolph' s religious 
utterances? What anecdotes are told of him? What is said of his 
pride? Of his wit? Of his sarcasm ? Of his relations to Barbour 
to Madison to Clay to Goddard to Beecher of Ohio? 

What is said of his family affections, etc. ? Of his lore for Mary 
1 1 'ard ? ( J his insanity ? ( >f his religious mania ? ( \f his declaration 
to Senator Benton .' Of his character? Of the re-interment of his 
remains ? 



SUBJECTS FOR SPECIAL STUDY. 

/. The Missouri Compromise. 

The Administration of John Quincy Adams. 
3. John Randolph and Thomas Jefferson. 
/. John Randolph and Henry Clay. 

j. John Randolph and Negro Slavery. 
0. fohn Randolph and State Rights. 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 179 

CHRONOLOGICAL EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 

1773 Born at Cavvson's, Virginia, June 2. 

1784 Attended Grammar School of William and Mary College. 
Went with his parents to Bermuda. 

1787 Attended Princeton College. 

1788 Attended Columbia College, New York. 

1789 Witnessed President Washington's Inauguration, April 30. 

1790 Studied law with Edmund Randolph. 
1795 Returned to Virginia. 

1799 Made his first speech in opposition to Patrick Henry. Elected 

to Congress. 

1800 Made his first speech in Congress, Jan 10. 
1799-1813 Served in Congress. 

181 3 Defeated for Congress. 

1 8 1 5 Returned to Congress. 

1824 Elected to the United States Senate, December. 

1826 Duel with Henry Clay. 

1827 Defeated for the United States Senate. Re-elected to Congress, 
1829 Member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention. 

1833 Died in Philadelphia, June 24. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



The following authorities have been consulted in the preparation 

of this sketch of John Randolph. 

John Randolph's Speeches, as given in the Annals of Congress, the 
Congressional Debates and Benton's Abridgment si the latter. 

Two volumes of Mss. belonging to Joseph Bryan, Esq.. of Richmond, 
\"a., containing the evidence in the lawsuits over Randolph's will. 

A scrap-book, belonging to Mr. Bryan, containing numerous newspa- 
per clippings on John Randolph. 

"The Life of John Randolph of Roanoke." By Hugh A. Garland. 
Two volumes bound in one. Eleventh edition. N. Y., D.Apple- 
ton & Co., 1856. 

C: A Biography of John Randolph of Roanoke." By Lemuel Sawyer, 
N. Y., Wm. Robinson, 1844. 

"Home Reminiscences of John Randolph of Roanoke." By Powha- 
tan Bouldin. Danville, Ya„ 1878. 

"John Randolph." By Henry Adams. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin & 
Co., 1890. 

"John Randolph of Roanoke." By Daniel B. Lucas, LL. D., of 
Charlestown, West Ya. An address delivered at Hampden— Sid- 
ney College in 1883. 

"John Randolph: A Sketch." By W. Cabell Bruce. Ya. University 
Magazine, Oct., 1879. 



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